


Temporarily Yours

by AlyCalypso



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Eventual relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Foster Care, Gallavich as dads, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Parent Ian Gallagher, Parent Mickey Milkovich, Parenthood, Prison, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24699643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyCalypso/pseuds/AlyCalypso
Summary: Ian is a newly licensed foster parent and he’s getting ready to welcome a little boy into his home named Yevgeny Milkovich.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 418
Kudos: 691
Collections: Numerous OTPS Infinite Fandoms





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of things before we start:
> 
> 1\. Ian is not bipolar in this story. If you’ve read some of my other fics, you know that I usually like to stay as close to character as possible, I don’t like to erase or deny that part of him BUT in this fic, even though it’s fiction, I figured it would already be hard for Ian to be a foster parent as a single gay man, but if you add bipolar on top of that it would be nearly impossible.
> 
> 2\. Yevgeny was conceived in a similar fashion than in the show (except that Ian wasn’t present), but a couple of years later, so Yevgeny is younger than he should be compared to Ian and Mickey’s ages.
> 
> 3\. Mickey is not physically present from the beginning, but he will be here soon, do not fret.

There were exactly fourteen babies staring back at him, scattered here and there all over the room, Ian had counted. Some of them on posters, others on pamphlets or on folders left on the table for people to go through while they waited. It was slightly unnerving to be surrounded by so many young judgmental stares. Ian taped his foot against the floor, his fingers drumming on his knee. The only other person sitting in the room, a woman in her early 30s two chairs away from him, sent him a look that made Ian stop immediately. And then pick it up again twenty seconds later. He was nervous, nobody could blame him. He had been licensed by the state of Illinois to be a foster parent for about six months already, and even though he had passed the home inspection, the health screening, the criminal background check and had aced all the classes he had had to take, DFCS was still reluctant to place a child in his care. They kept claiming it wasn’t for any specific reason, but Ian was pretty certain that being a single gay man originally from the South Side of Chicago wasn’t really helping. He had gotten out though, even if his initial teenage plan of going to West Point and becoming an officer in the Army hadn’t actually worked out, he was now a qualified paramedic and had been so for two years after working as an EMT for over six years. He had a nice clean apartment with two bedrooms, a stable and comfortable salary, and all the time and devotion needed to properly take care of a child.

His DCFS contact had called him that morning, and he had switched his shift to be here, even though he was pretty certain it was just another appointment to give him an excuse as to why he wasn’t “the right match for any child we have at the moment”. He sighed loudly and taped his foot a little faster, earning himself an eye roll from the woman.

“Mr Gallagher?” a voice suddenly came to break the nervous silence of the room, and Ian looked up to see his DCFS contact (another 30-something woman answering to the name Bethany Young), poking her head through the door. “If you will follow me to my office.”

He stood up, gave a little polite nod to the woman in the waiting room and followed Bethany into a string of hallways until they reached her office. They each sat on a side of the desk and Ian let his eyes wonder to the usual clutter of the room. There were shelves full of files and folders going all the way up to the ceiling, so full that some files and folders had ended up on the floor. Bethany pushed some paperwork around on her desk, allowing herself access to her keyboard and typed a few things before turning her attention back to Ian.

“So, Mr Gallagher.” she smiled. “Do you still wish to foster a child?”

“Yes.” he nodded energetically. “Absolutely.”

She glanced back quickly at her computer screen.

“We’ve noted that, if you are not opposed to the idea of taking care of a baby, you would be more comfortable with an older child, is that correct?”

“Yes.” he nodded again.

“I just wanted to make sure.” Bethany continued. “There is actually a child that came into our care recently and we thought you would be ideal for him.”

Ian felt his lips stretch into a smile. Finally some good news! Without ever going through a proper baby craze like his younger sister had when she was sixteen and had managed to get herself pregnant, Ian had always loved children and if taking care of his nieces and nephews was always nice, these past few years he had started thinking more and more about having children of his own. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy in general to have kids, and it’s even less easy when you’re gay and therefore cannot “procreate naturally”. Adoption had always been on his mind, and he had mentioned it in passing with his last two boyfriends but each time the other man hadn’t been interested and the relationship hadn’t lasted long enough to make that sort of plans anyway. It was only after a long discussion with his older brother who had gone through the system to first foster and than adopt his daughter Xan, that Ian had decided he might start that way. If fostering a child didn’t usually last forever, he could at least give them the love they deserved for the time he would have them in his care and maybe, one day, he would be given the responsibility of a child in dire need of adoption.

“The child is a boy.” Bethany explained. “He is seven and the placement would be for at least eighteen months.”

“Okay.” Ian said, taking mental notes of everything she told him. “May I ask what his story is?”

“Of course.” Bethany replied, grabbing a file from the pile next to her keyboard and opening it. “We are required to tell you everything we know about him which, in that case, isn’t a lot but hopefully enough for you to understand a bit about his trauma and support him through it.”

Ian took a little shaky breath. He knew being a foster parent wasn’t easy and included dealing with a child’s story, not matter how devastating it was, but hearing it said that way felt a little scary and burdened him with a lot of responsibility.

“His name is… Yev… Yevgeny? Milkovich.” Bethany read from her file. “As I said, he is seven years old, and he was living with his father so far, and his aunt I think? Or a cousin of sorts? The family lineage is a little hard to track. His mother apparently left a few years ago according to the father, and we haven’t been able to find her. He has come into our care because his father was arrested recently and sentenced to at least eighteen months in prison. Hopefully it won’t be more, but he has priors and a history of violence so we need to prepare for that. According to our investigation though, the child has been never abused, he doesn’t suffer from any form of malnutrition or any physical attack on his body. Due to the father’s arrest and the house we found the child in, we had him go through some drug tests and there were not conclusive which means he hasn’t been in contact with any drugs recently but we don’t exclude the possibility that he ever had in his early childhood or infancy, especially because the mother, according to the father, is, and I quote, ‘a fucking whore’. We don’t know if that’s technically true or just an insult, but the child is physically healthy so that’s all that matters.”

Ian took the time to digest the information. The Milkoviches had an infamous reputation around the South Side and, if Ian had never actually been in contact with any of them, he wasn’t surprised that one of them would have a child with a prostitute and would later end up in prison, resulting in the child being picked up by DCFS. That sounded like pretty standard procedure coming from them.

“If you are still willing to foster that child,” Bethany concluded. “You can meet him now, and then either me or another social worker will drive him to your home tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on what works better for you.”

********

After Ian had signed all the necessary paperwork, he was brought to a room full of toys, books and other activities. There was only one child sitting at a small table, drawing on a large piece of paper with crayons. Ian didn’t need to ask to know it was Yevgeny. He looked at him through the glass for a little while, he had messy blond hair and what looked like blue eyes from afar, with eyebrows raising in rhythm with the crayon moving on the page. Bethany asked Ian if he was ready to go in, and a few moments later they were inside the room and Ian was sitting across from the boy at the child-size table.

“Hi Yevgeny.”

The boy looked up at Ian, raised his eyebrows a bit, and then looked back down at his drawing.

“I’m Ian, and you’re gonna come live with me for a little while if that’s okay with you.”

Yevgeny kept drawing, not saying a word. Bethany had warned him that the boy didn’t speak much and might take a while to warm up to him, so Ian kept the smile on his face.

“What are you drawing?” he asked.

Yevgeny stopped coloring the corner he was so focused on to move the paper a little toward Ian. There were two stick figures, one taller than the other, possibly holding hands, and behind them what looked like a couch and maybe also a TV?

“Is that you and your dad?”

Yevgeny nodded and took the drawing back, coloring the couch a bright green color.

“Do you miss him?” Ian wondered, and Yevgeny shrugged.

Ian had been in foster care himself a few times as a child, whenever a bitchy neighborhood lady called DCFS because his parents were either on a bender or gone somewhere, and he had never truly missed his father or mother, but he had missed his older siblings when he was separated from them.

“Your dad is going to be back.” Ian promised without truly knowing if that was true. “But in the meantime, I also have a TV, we can watch whatever you want.”

Yevgeny ignored him, and Ian turned back to Bethany who gestured for them to leave the room.

“Don’t worry.” she said once they were both outside and out of Yevgeny’s earshot. “Children are often quiet around new foster parents, he will warm up to you soon enough.”

“I was also a quiet child.” Ian confessed. “But mostly because I was the middle one and nobody really paid attention to me.”

Ian took one more look at the boy and then agreed on a time of arrival at his house for that same evening, before leaving to get himself and his house ready.

********

He went directly to the grocery store and bought every kid stuff he could think of, from five different brands of cereal to a dozen boxes of Kraft mac & cheese. He loaded up on fruit snacks, and chocolate and Goldfish, while also buying some veggies and enough food to make healthy balanced meals for a week. He didn’t know whether Yevgeny was a picky eater or not, but he guessed that a child raised in the Milkovich house didn’t necessarily eat spinach everyday so he tried to buy an equal amount of junk food and green stuff to both make the child comfortable but also teach him good eating habits.

He went home after that and cleaned his apartment thoroughly. He rented a two-bedroom in the safest part of the South Side and had spent months decorating the second bedroom for a prospective foster child. He had painted the walls different shades of blue and green with animal prints and stickers here and there. There was a single bed in the corner with rather neutral bed sheets and the snuggest comforter. He had bought the dresser and the desk as a set matching the light wood of the bed, and had found a light blue chair to harmonize the colors. He had also asked his siblings for old toys that their children didn’t use anymore and that still looked in good enough shape to be acceptable, and he had filled a basket with them, adding some he had bought himself. As a finishing touch, he had recycled an old wooden box into a shelf that he had installed on the wall above the desk and filled with his favorite books as a child. He wasn’t exactly an interior design guru, and the rest of his apartment looked rather dull compared to that room, but he had done his very best to make any child welcome here. He had seen some shady places during his own childhood and he didn’t want to recreate any of these horrible memories.

After making sure the bedroom was organized, he took out a fresh set of towels that he placed on top of the little counter in the bathroom next to the kid shower gel and shampoo combo he had purchased a couple of weeks ago. At the last minute he remembered Yevgeny drawing, so he took out some paper from the printer he had invested in while taking his paramedic classes but never used anymore, and left them on the desk in the bedroom, next to the box of crayons he had added to his cart at the last minute in the store.

His apartment was 100% kid ready when Bethany knocked on the door at 4pm holding Yevgeny’s hand. Ian gave them both (but mostly Yevgeny) a quick tour and then signed some more paperwork before Bethany left. Once the door close behind her, Ian realized that was it, he had a child in his care now, he was all alone with him and he had to be a parent. He leaned against the door for a moment, taking a deep breath. It was not the time to panic, he had wanted this, he had signed up for this, he could do this. No matter how fucked up his own parents had been, he would have to do better. His siblings had managed to in their own way, he would too. He inhaled slowly, and exhaled through his mouth, before detaching himself from the door and walking toward the bedroom.

He found Yevgeny sitting on the bed, going through one of Ian’s favorite comics.

“This one is the best.” he said with a grin. “Do you need me to read it to you?”

“I can read.” Yevgeny replied, Ian hearing his voice for the very first time.

The boy sounded a little offended at Ian’s implication that he wasn’t old enough to read a book by himself, so Ian let him be and started to empty his suitcase, filling the dresser with all of the child’s possession, which weren’t a lot, he only had two pair of pants, a few shirts and three sweaters. Ian wasn’t exactly loaded, but with his paramedic salary and the stipend DCFS would be giving him every month, he knew he could buy the boy some more clothes, and maybe also more comics if he liked them. He went to put Yevgeny’s toothbrush in the bathroom next to his and came back to finish emptying the suitcase. Nearing the bottom, he found a framed picture of Yevgeny with an older man sharing the same blue eyes and expressing eyebrows, both of them making silly faces. Ian grinned at the scene and tried not to think that the guy (who he assumed was Yevgeny’s father) was kind of cute. He placed the picture on the nightstand next to the bed. Yevgeny immediately looked up when he saw it, and he smiled. Ian stored the suitcase in the closet in the hallway where he kept his own bags and other pieces of luggage, and then decided to start making dinner. He was surprised by how naturally this all came to him despite his own little internal freak out, and he stirred the pot of mac & cheese with renewed confidence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have noticed, I have changed my username. I've been wanting to change it for years, now it's done. That's it 😅

The loud buzz resonated through the walls and the bright light turned on. Mickey opened his eyes slowly, remembering where he was. He stretched on the uncomfortable mattress and sat up while the man on the top bunk groaned loudly. Five hundred and thirty-one days left in this shithole, he could make it, he had done worse before. He put his khaki polyester shirt on top of his white tank top and slipped his feet into his prison-issue shoes. He was laying low, that was his plan. He was only there for a little misdemeanor and his name was protection enough between these walls, he didn’t need to join any gangs or partake in any further criminal activities, he would just do the time and get out, and hopefully, maybe, go out on parole early if he walked around unnoticed for long enough.

He made his bed and stood outside of their little cubicle for roll-call. It was a low security prison, they didn’t have proper cells, and Mickey was equally glad and pissed at that. Minimum security meant slightly more freedom, but no cell meant he could hear and know everything going on around him and it made it harder to not get involved. The guard made his round, counting them and stopping a second longer in front of Mickey, as he always did, probably hoping his Milkovich side would take over and he would do something stupid, but Mickey refused to play that game and he simply kept his gaze straight, fixing a point far in front of him, discouraging the guard pretty quickly. He was on his best fucking behavior, they wouldn’t get to him.

The first half of the day went by a little faster than it used to as Mickey had now been assigned a job. He was working laundry and it didn’t bother him as much as other guys, he’d rather do that than scrub the toilets or clean the kitchen floors. He had been doing his own laundry on the outside for years now, getting blood or jizz stains out of clothes was basically an everyday task in his life. What he was most looking forward though, was the weekly visiting time taking place that afternoon. His sister was scheduled to come and Mickey needed to know what had been going on with his son since he had been locked up. He had never claimed any “father of the year” award and he knew he was a passing father at best, but he had always tried his hardest to provide for his son and to keep him away from the foster care system, which was why he had been more than pissed when the cops had arrested him for a little assault and battery and used his priors to lock him up, resulting in Yevgeny ending up between DCFS’s paws.

********

The visiting room had sad gray walls and a sad gray floor with sad gray tables placed in neat rows with a few feet in between each of them. When Mickey entered, he immediately spotted his sister sitting alone at one of the tables and making intensely flirty eye contact with a guard. He sat heavily in front of her, making his presence known.

“Alright, cut it out, slut.”

“Nice to see you too, brother.” Mandy smirked. “You’re eating well?”

“Why do you care?” Mickey spat, he didn’t have time for this idle small talk. “D’you find out where Yevgeny is?”

“Not yet.” Mandy admitted, which pissed Mickey off because he had literally asked only one thing of her since being in the can.

“What the hell, Mandy?! I told you to take care of the kid!”

“I have better things to do than to babysit your Rub N’Tug bastard while you sit in prison for fuck knows how long!”

“So you called DCFS?” Mickey groaned.

If he hadn’t been where he was, surrounded by all these guards, he would have probably strangled her with his bare hands.

“I didn’t fucking call them.” Mandy sighed. “I would never do that. They showed up at the house after your ass landed in here. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Mickey, but we don’t exactly live in a castle, one look around and the kid was gone. Don’t worry though, I’m sure he’s with a nice couple now that’ll take good care of him.”

“That’s exactly why I asked you to find out where he went, bitch!”

“Fuck you Mick, I’m not your personal assistant.”

His sister was so fucking annoying sometimes.

“Fine, if you don’t want to do it, ask Sandy!” he exclaimed. “And tell her to come see me next time, if I see you flirting with one more guard I’ll shoot myself.”

“Oh calm your tits, you drama queen. I’m a grown woman, I can flirt with whoever I want. But yeah, I’ll ask Sandy if you want. Not sure what you can do if he’s with a terrible family though...”

“At least I’ll know.”

“I guess.” Mandy shrugged, and they looked at each other silently for a beat before she added: “So, you’ve made any friends?”

“Nope. I’m laying low, getting out on parole as soon as I fucking can.”

“Smart. I don’t know how you do it, this place is real creepy.”

“How come you’re the only Mikovich that never ended up in jail?”

“Cause I’m not as stupid as all of you bozos. Speaking of which, I need to tell you what Iggy did last week, it’s so dumb.”

___________________________

Ian was making slow but steady progress with Yevgeny. The boy still wasn’t talking much, but Ian had at least managed to figure out what he liked to eat and what his favorite show was (which was a pretty watchable cartoon so Ian was glad about that, at least he didn’t have to suffer through hours of Paw Patrol like his brother had). The first week had been easy, between school and work. Ian had introduced himself to Yevgeny’s teacher, who had only nice things to say about him. Except for the one time a kid on the playground had called his father “Mickey Mouse” and Yevgeny had shoved him to the ground with great force, the boy was apparently a very calm and quiet student who loved to read but struggled bit with numbers. Ian had kept Yevgeny enrolled in the school lunch program as it was what the child was apparently used to and Ian didn’t want to disturb his routine too much. They did eat breakfast and dinner together every day though, and Ian had made mental notes that Yevgeny liked Pop Tarts and Lucky Charms but not Cheerios, that he wouldn’t noticed if broccoli was mixed with his food but would spit carrots out right away, and that the boy had never tried eggplant before but had apparently quite a fondness for it now (especially if Ian made them Parmesan). No, the first week wasn’t hard, but the second week was.

It was the first week of Spring vacation and Ian was at quite a loss of what to do with Yevgeny. First and foremost because of his work schedule. He was able to take one and a half day off, but still had to work the rest of the time, and DCFS did provide him with daycare vouchers but finding a daycare provider in his area vetted by the state was harder than it looked so he had to resolve to leaving Yevgeny in Lip’s care as Ian’s older brother was also licensed in foster parenting and therefore an acceptable babysitter in Bethany’s eyes. Lip wasn’t so keen to the idea of taking care of a Milkovich due to the reputation of the family but Ian promised him a full night of babysitting in exchange so that he could go out with his girlfriend without the kids. Yevgeny wasn’t very happy either, he was just starting to warm up to Ian and already had to spend several days in the house of a stranger, which broke Ian’s heart who felt so powerless in the absence of a better solution. To compensate, he bought Yevgeny his favorite pizza on the first night, then his favorite McDonald’s meal on the second night, he let him watch a movie later than usual until the boy fell asleep on the couch on the third night, and he bought him a new toy on the fourth night. When they reached the fifth and last day that Yevgeny would spend at Lip’s house, the boy was cranky and entitled and Ian was emotionally and physically exhausted from the stress and guilt of dealing with that situation in that way.

“Beer?” Lip offered when Ian came to pick Yevgeny up after his shift.

The redhead accepted without a second thought and cracked open the bottle he was given. As soon as the liquid touched his tongue, he knew there was something wrong with it.

“This doesn’t have alcohol in it.” he promptly noted.

“Sorry.” Lip grimaced. “Tami’s refused to buy any alcohol, even for herself or guests, since the last time I fell off the wagon. It tastes pretty much the same though, doesn’t it?”

“Nope.” Ian shook his head while placing the bottle on the counter far away from him as if it was poisoned. “It tastes like crap. But I’m glad it’s working for you.”

He looked out at the living room where Yevgeny was helping Lip’s toddler son to build a block tower.

“This is hard.” he confessed. “Parenting is a fucking roller coaster.”

Lip placed a gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder. The comforting touch felt almost too much for Ian’s mental fragile state that day. He wanted to cry, but also to scream and to sleep for three days straight, and he had only been a parent for two weeks.

“I know.” Lip said. “And you haven’t chosen the easiest way to approach it: foster kids have a fuckton of baggage that are not your fault but that you have to deal with no matter what. Remember when Xan used to steal all the time? I was way out of my league, swimming with the fucking sharks on the first try.”

“How did you deal with it?”

“I tried my best, and that’s honestly the best advice I could give you, don’t be a Frank.”

Ian let out a small chuckle. Not being their father was actually pretty easy, being a good parent on the other hand, that was a whole other challenge…

“Okay Yevgeny.” he announced, putting his dad pants back on. “Time to go home.”

********

The rest of the evening had gone by rather smoothly after Ian had decided to just go with the flow and not put any pressure on himself or Yevgeny, they had eaten whatever they wanted, he was pretty certain that the boy hadn’t brushed his teeth, but at least now he was in bed and sleeping and Ian could lounge on the couch with a real beer watching an umpteenth re-run of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on TV. He was well into his third episode when he heard the unmistakable sound of a door creaking open and turned his head to see a seven-year-old wrapped in his blanket and holding his teddy bear making his way toward the couch. Yevgeny sat next to him and Ian turned the TV off.

“I miss my daddy.” the boy said in a tiny sleepy voice.

“I know.” Ian nodded, wrapping an arm around Yevgeny’s shoulders. “I’m sorry he’s not here.”

“When is he coming back?”

Yevgeny looked up at him with his big blue eyes and Ian felt his heart break a little. Eighteen months were way too long for a child that age...

“Next summer I think...” he answered, hoping he could have given his ward better news. “Do you know where he is?”

“Prison.” Yevgeny said matter-of-factly. “It’s like time-out for grown-ups. My uncles and my auntie Sandy go there often and then we don’t see them for a while.”

“Yeah.” Ian nodded. “That’s pretty much what it is.”

“Why is my daddy in time-out though?”

“I don’t know.” Ian admitted, and he internally cursed everybody at DCFS for not having giving him that crucial piece of information.

“Do you think it’s because he said a bad word?” Yevgeny wondered. “He says a lot of bad words.”

“Maybe.” Ian laughed. “I’ll ask Bethany if you want, maybe she knows.”

Yevgeny nodded and brought his thumb to his mouth to suck on it. Ian had never seen him do that in the two weeks they had spent together and he knew it wasn’t good news, it meant the little boy needed a coping mechanism to deal with feelings that were too strong for him to handle. He squeezed him a little tighter and both of them sat silent on the couch for a while.

“I miss my mommy too...” Yevgeny said after a moment. “She’s not in prison, she’s just gone...”

“I’m sorry, bud.” Ian said quietly.

He had been that child, that scared little boy who missed his parents and had no idea when they would come back, if they would ever come back, but he at least had siblings to rely on, Yevgeny was alone and forced to live with a complete stranger.

“She’s a bitch.” the child declared suddenly, to Ian’s big surprise.

“Where did you learn that word?”

“My daddy says that all the time, that my mommy is a bitch. I think it means she’s gone far away and she’s not coming back.”

Well… That made sense. On top of not knowing what Yevgeny’s father was in jail for, Ian was also very curious as to what the story was with his mother. Was she just another Monica who disappeared from times to times for no reason other than she wanted to? Did she leave for good? A darkest part of him (the paramedic part who saw terrible things on his job everyday) sometimes even thought that maybe Yevgeny’s dad had killed her. It had happened before, a man killing his wife in an act of anger, and it wouldn’t exactly shock him with the Milkoviches’ reputation. He would never say any of that to Yevgeny though.

“Probably what he means, yeah.” he simply agreed. “You know, my mommy was gone a lot too when I was your age. She just left all the time and we never knew when she would come back. It made me very sad too.”

“But she came back sometimes?” the boy asked, raising his sad eyes toward Ian once again.

“She did. But then she left again, so I liked it better when she was just gone, that way I wasn’t waiting for her to leave again. I liked when it was my sister Fiona and my brother Lip who took care of me.”

“Lip is nice.” Yevgeny recognized with a yawn. “But I like you better.”

Ian smiled and gave himself a mental pat on the back. At least that was that, Yevgeny actually liked him.

“Thanks Yev.” he said quietly as he felt the boy snuggle closer to him and fall asleep. “I like you too.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore the differences between Mandy and Sandy in this chapter and in this fic. Where Sandy has appeared a little cold to Ian several times in canon, she’s fiercely loyal to Mickey, and Mandy, on the other hand, would more easily side with Ian than with her brother. It’s an interesting contrast and something fun to play with in fanfiction 😊

Ian woke up on his day off to the warm rays of sunshine hitting his face through the blinds. He stretched, yawned, and checked his phone for the time. 7.46am. It was early but at least it was an hour and forty-six minutes later than his work day wake up, so one could consider that sleeping in. He looked down and reached for the noticeable bulge in his loose sweatpants. He hadn’t taken the time to masturbate since Yevgeny had moved in, and hadn’t had sex with anybody for a little over three months before that. It wasn’t that long compared to the average person, but Ian had always been a very sexually active person, and when he hadn’t minded pleasuring himself in the bathroom as a teenager while the house was full of kids, the thought of doing something remotely close to that now, when he was fostering a child in his home felt wrong and awkward, even if the kid was in a closed bedroom far away from his own and asleep. That probably meant Ian was heading for the utmost celibacy to the point that he wouldn’t even touch himself for the next seventeen months, two weeks and three days. He could do that, right? Or he would explode from the repressed feelings, it could easily go either way.   
  
He rolled out of bed and went to relieve his bladder in the bathroom before heading for the kitchen and turning the coffee maker on. The smooth rhythmic sound of the coffee percolating was always his favorite part of the morning, it had something relaxing to it. Today though, he was interrupted in his pseudo moment of relaxation by a heavy pounding on the door. He dragged his feet to go open it and was met with an angry-looking young woman that seemed slightly dangerous.   
  
“Yevgeny here?” she asked without any introduction.   
  
“Who’s asking?” Ian spat back, placing his hand strategically on the door frame to keep her from coming in.   
  
He was pretty certain she was a Milkovich, from the ghetto fashion style to the scars and tattoos, not to mention the fact that her hair had obviously not seen a shower in a while.   
  
“None of your fucking business.” she said with a challenging raise of eyebrows that Ian had seen in Yevgeny. “I’m here to take the kid back.”   
  
“That’s not how it works.”   
  
Ian would not cave, he was Yevgeny’s guardian for the time being and that was it, he didn’t care if that stranger was ready to stab him or beat him to the ground, he was South Side as well and ready to fight.   
  
“Auntie Sandy?” Yevgeny’s sleepy voice asked from behind him. “What are you doing here?”   
  
“Hey kiddo.” the woman (so Sandy apparently) said with a large smile that looked... _gentle_? “I’m here to take you home.”   
  
“No you’re not.” Ian interfered.   
  
“Is my daddy back?” Yevgeny asked as he came closer.   
  
“Not yet.” Sandy kept smiling (which made Ian slightly uncomfortable). “But you can stay with me for a while.”   
  
Yevgeny looked between his aunt and Ian, and then back at his aunt.   
  
“I like it here.” he declared. “Ian has nice toys.”   
  
And with that he turned around and walked back toward his bedroom to probably play with said toys. Ian looked Sandy up and down with a smirk and crossed his arms over his chest.   
  
“You can leave now.”   
  
“I’ll be back. I’m allowed to fucking visit him, and I need to keep an eye on your ginger ass.”

  
********

Ian and Yevgeny had their first home visit from Bethany that afternoon. Ian made chocolate chip cookies from scratch with Yevgeny’s help, using the baking session to bond with the boy and to learn a little more about that Sandy person that had tried to barge in on their fragile relationship that morning.

“She’s my daddy’s cousin.” Yevgeny explained. “Auntie Mandy is my daddy’s sister. And then I have a lot of uncles. Some of them are not very nice, but Uncle Iggy sometimes let me play video games with him. Auntie Sandy is a little scary but she’s cool. Auntie Mandy likes boys a lot, that’s what my daddy says. They both buy me ice cream when my daddy says yes, and they buy me toys for my birthday. Auntie Mandy lives with us, I don’t know where Auntie Sandy lives. Sometimes she’s here, sometimes she’s not, but she helps my daddy a lot.”

When Bethany arrived, she sat on the armchair and they sat on the couch directly across from her, cookies placed on the coffee table in between them. She started by asking Yevgeny questions about his life with Ian, and then requested some time alone with him, forcing Ian to go stand nervously in the kitchen. He knew it was standard procedure and that Bethany would just ask Yevgeny simple questions that he could answer truthfully without the pressure of Ian being in the room, but what if the boy said he wasn’t happy here? What if he asked to leave? Ian wasn’t sure he could handle such failure from his first foster parenting trial… And he actually started to like Yevgeny, he would be sad to see him go beyond the lack of success in his parenting methods. Bethany called him back soon after she had sent him away, and he returned to sit on the couch just as the social worker was dismissing Yevgeny who gladly agreed to go play in his room.

“He still doesn’t talk much, does he?” Bethany remarked once they were alone, which surprised Ian considering how much Yevgeny had told him these past few days.

“He talks with me.” he admitted. “Quite a lot actually, this kid is a real chatterbox.”

Bethany hummed and took some notes down on her clipboard.

“That’s good.” she said when she looked back up. “That means he feels comfortable with you. I’m glad it’s working, that you’re a good match for him.”

Ian let out a little breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Bethany thought he was good for Yevgeny, and Yevgeny felt comfortable with him, that was great news. He laughed a little.

“Were you nervous?” Bethany asked with a knowing smile.

“A little.” he confessed. “It hasn’t been the easiest two weeks.”

“It’s always hard, but you’re doing a good job, especially for a first time.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you have any more question for me before I leave?”

“Yeah, actually.” Ian nodded. “A couple. About Yevgeny’s real family, his aunts and uncles and stuff, are they allowed to spend time with him?”

“It depends on the family and on the child’s situation.” Bethany explained. “In Yevgeny’s case there is no physical or sexual abuse so we have no reason to keep the family away. They can perfectly spend time with him but either you or I need to be there at all times. It is actually recommended that you develop a relationship with his biological family because the goal of foster care is not to cut all ties but to lead to reunification eventually. It can go from a play date once a month to daily text conversations, depending on what you are comfortable with.”

Ian took notes of all of that, knowing he would have to make peace with the idea of spending time with that Sandy character if Yevgeny wished to see her more.

“Okay.” he acquiesced. “What about Yevgeny’s father? Can I take Yevgeny to go visit him? And do you know what he is in prison for?”

Bethany looked down at her notes and went through her file for a moment.

“I unfortunately do not have the information about his sentencing.” she apologized. “But eighteen months and he had priors? It can’t be that bad. We’ve had children whose parents went to prison for murder, that was tough to handle. But a little misdemeanor is usually easier to explain to children. I’ll see if I can find the information for you. As for visits, you are technically allowed, again reunification and whatnot, but the problem that we have come across a few times in the past is that some prisons do not allow minors to visit inmates so, if I were you, I would do the proper research and find that out before promising anything to Yevgeny. You also need his father to put you on his visiting list and, again, sometimes parents refuse to because they don’t want their child to see them in prison. I have very limited tools and leeway to help you with that, so my advice would be to mention it to the biological family and see if they can be a little more useful.”

********

After Bethany left, Ian spent the remaining of the afternoon searching for Mickey Milkovich online. Not much came up except for past police cases and his name coming up in crimes related to his family. Ian still managed to find out what he had been arrested and charged for (beating up a guy in the street) and which prison he was currently serving his time at (Stateville Minimum in Joliet, Illinois, meaning Ian would need a car to go there). After a little more digging, he also found a wedding announcement for a Mikhailo Milkovich and a Svetlana Yevgenivna eight years prior, as well as an obituary dated from three years ago for a certain Terry Milkovich, with Mickey listed as one of his children, and the name rang a bell in Ian’s distant memories as the terrifying patriarch of the family. But that was all he found, there was no social media, no high school yearbook pictures, nothing that could indicate in any way what kind of job Mickey had, or what his life looked like, just the very basic facts that were put online via official websites that Mickey had no control over. Ian then tried to search for some more information about his wife, Yevgeny’s mother, but she was even more of a ghost, the only thing he could assume was that she probably had some Eastern European origins, possibly Russian, according to her name and the name she had given her child. Basically, he had nothing.

He abandoned his research when it was time to give Yevgeny a bath, but his phone dinged a few minutes later, just as he was closing his laptop, with a new follow request on Instagram from a certain Mandy Milkovich. Granted, he mainly posted pictures of sunsets and sunrises, but his page was still set to private for the occasional times he shared pictures of his nieces and nephews, and to be found and suddenly followed by a person who he knew was Yevgeny’s relative felt a little stalkerish. He reminded himself of what Bethany had told him though, and accepted the request. He came back to his phone after making sure Yevgeny was wearing his clean pajamas and not the ones he had put in the laundry basket that morning, and saw five notifications. Four of them were Mandy liking some of his pictures, and the last one was a direct message from her asking if she could spend some time with her nephew the very next day. He thought about it for all of two minutes. He tried to imagine all the possible outcomes and terrible things that could happen if he said yes and if he said no. In the end, the prospect of reuniting Yevgeny with his aunt won him over, and he answered back with a time and place where they could meet up.

********

Mandy showed up at the park they agreed upon with Sandy, which Ian wasn’t too happy about, she still rubbed him the wrong way. It wasn’t hard to notice that the two women were related, but where Sandy still had that South Side edge to her that she wore proudly like a badge of honor, Mandy looked slightly more “peaceful”, with blond hair and a rather casual outfit of blue jeans and a pale pink shirt, contrasting with Sandy’s all black attire.

“You’re Ian.” Mandy said as she shook his hand. “Even cuter than in your pictures.”

“Thanks.” Ian blushed before turning toward the other woman. “Sandy. Good to see you again.”

“Yeah.” Sandy sighed before turning all of her attention to Yevgeny. “Hey kiddo. What do you want to play?”

Ian sat on a bench as Yevgeny went running toward the swings with Sandy, and Mandy sat next to him.

“Don’t you want to spend time with your nephew?” Ian asked.

“I do.” Mandy nodded. “But Mickey also asked us to make sure you aren’t a weird pervert slash kid abductor.”

“I’m not.” Ian laughed.

“You’re a Gallagher, right?”

“Yep. And I’m guessing you know as much about my family as I know about yours.”

“It’d be safe to assume that, yeah. Also, I might have slept with your brother once or twice in high school.”

Ian looked at the woman sitting beside him. He didn’t need to ask to know the brother she was referring to was Lip, but he also wasn’t surprised he didn’t remember her: Lip had slept with _a lot_ of girls in high school.

“I might have chosen the wrong brother though.” Mandy added. “You’re way hotter.”

“Barking up the wrong tree here, Mandy.” he said with a laugh before he remembered hearing about the Milkoviches fag-bashing people around the neighborhood when he was younger. “I mean...” he stuttered. “I...”

Mandy watched him struggle for a little while, an unreadable expression on her face, and then she broke into a smile.

“It’s fine. The best ones are always gay anyway.”

“I haven’t mentioned any of that to Yevgeny.” Ian added, trying to sound reassuring. “I don’t want to like, overstep or make it weird. I don’t know how much he knows about...”

“It’s really okay.” Mandy patted his knee. “Sandy’s gay too, Yevgeny knows, nobody cares.”

Ian exhaled loudly. It was good to know, it would allow him to avoid an awkward conversation in the future, and it meant he didn’t have to tip-toe about it around Yevgeny. He looked at him playing with Sandy and noticed that some of the resentment he felt toward her had lifted away, was this gay-lesbian solidarity or some rainbow bullshit of that effect? He basked in the feeling for a little while before remembering he had something to ask Mandy.

“Hey, do you think I could take Yevgeny to visit his dad? He’s at Stateville Minimum, right?”

Mandy seemed almost impressed that he knew that information and maybe a little happy that he asked such question.

“Yes you can, Mickey would love that. I didn’t know it was allowed.”

“It is. You just need to ask your brother to put me on his visitors’ list. Because I’m technically the adult responsible for Yevgeny these days I need to be there, he can’t go with you or Sandy.”

“Okay.” Mandy smiled. “I’ll do that. You know, I like you, Ian Gallagher, you aren’t the foster creep I was expecting, you actually seem like a good guy.”

Ian smiled back. He liked her too, that Mandy was quite pleasant to be around, he could see himself do that more.

“Alright.” she added as she stood up. “Let’s see if those kiddos want ice cream.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Mickey hasn’t been very present so far in this fic, but don’t worry, his part will only grow bigger as we go.

In spite of his sporadic work schedule, Ian had managed to match it pretty well to Yevgeny’s school schedule, thanks to understanding and supportive colleagues, but it still happened from times to times, that he wasn’t working while Yevgeny was in school, and this was one of these days. He woke up with the child, made him breakfast and made sure he was ready before dropping him off at school, and then came back home, took a long, warm shower before heading out again. The thought of jerking off in the shower quickly crossed his mind, but he was too anxious to even be in the mood, the plans he had for the day had kept him up most of the night, and not for sexy reasons. He stopped by Born Free Cycles as previously agreed with Lip to borrow his car (well, Tami’s car), and then he was on his way South, driving the one-hour trip to Joliet, Illinois. He fully intended to bring Yevgeny to visit his father, but he had also decided to go there alone first without telling the child. He wanted to see how things went, how open the visitation room was, how things would go once he brought Yevgeny there, and he wanted to meet Mickey alone first. This was a weird situation, he was taking care of the man’s son without ever have met him before. He wasn’t sure if he was waiting for approval, or just for a friendly conversation about Yevgeny’s life, but if felt important to do it that way.

He parked his car on the lot, made sure he left all of his belongings in the glove compartment except for his required two forms of ID, and made his way inside the building. He was a little nervous and hoped it didn’t show. He was mostly surrounded by women, wives and mothers of the inmates, and was one of only two male visitors. He tried not to think too hard on that and on what people would think his relationship with Mickey was. Things would probably look even more domestic when he would bring Yevgeny in, because he had seen pictures of Mickey and knew he could definitely not pass for his brother. This was not something that usually bothered him, he was out and proud after all, but he didn’t want to cause trouble for Mickey if the other inmates started assuming shit and have his visitation revoke as the result of the highly homophobic nature of the prison system, he didn’t want Yevgeny to stop seeing his dad because of that.

He signed in and completed the “Prospective Visitor Interview” that was required of him due to this being his first visit. Filling out his name and other personal information wasn’t too difficult but he paused at the line “Relationship to offender”. He almost wrote “friend” or “acquaintance” before going for the truth and scribbled down “foster parent to his child”, which was a very strange reality to face in such circumstances. He wondered if the feeling of having “stolen” someone’s child ever went away. He knew it wasn’t what had technically happened, it was all legal and in the best interest of Yevgeny, but he still felt like a fraud, the guy who had to temporarily take care of someone else’s kid because he couldn’t have his own… A guard thankfully stopped his thoughts from spiraling when he announced the visitation time would start shortly. They were all searched quickly (especially Ian and the other guy, the guards took a suspiciously longer time to search the good looking ladies), and then brought into the saddest room Ian had ever seen. He followed everyone’s lead and sat at a table while the guard repeated the rules for the umpteenth time. The inmates were allowed in about a minute later, and Ian took a deep but discreet breath. He spotted Mickey quite easily. He had never actually met the guy, but he almost felt like he already knew him thanks to the pictures he had seen and Yevgeny’s stories. Mickey stopped in front of his table without any hesitation either and nodded quietly at him before sitting.

“Sandy told me you were an alien-looking redhead, she wasn’t wrong.” he said as a form of greeting.

Ian self-consciously ran a hand through his hair (which was getting a little long by the way, he was due for a haircut soon), and smiled politely.

“Where’s my kid?” Mickey asked without acknowledging Ian’s smile.

“School.” Ian admitted. “I thought I’d come visit you alone first to see how things went.”

“So you can choose whether or not you actually bring him?” Mickey spat. “It all depends on if you what, _like_ me? He’s my kid, man, it’s not up to you to make that fucking decision.”

“Actually it kinda is.” Ian replied with just as much bite. “I’m responsible for him right now, and if I want to judge whether or not a prison visitation room is a good place for him, I’m allowed to do that.”

“You’re a fucking dick.”

“Takes one to know one, don’t you think?”

“Why the fuck are you even here? Did you just travel all the way down here to insult me and tell me you won’t bring my kid to visit me?”

Ian sighed and covered his face with his hand. This was going so wrong, why were they even talking to each other that way? He had come here with the intention of being nice and polite, how did Mickey managed to get him riled up so quickly?

“I’m sorry.” he breathed out. “I didn’t want to insult you, and I will bring Yevgeny, I promise, I just… This is a prison, and I wanted to come by first to see what to expect and what to prepare Yevgeny for. I wanted to be able to tell him how things would go, how many guards there would be, how scary the other inmates were going to be, and in which context he would get to see you.”

Mickey seemed to relax a little at that, and the anger emanating from his eyes disappeared.

“Yeah, I get it.” he let out. “My mom took me to visit my dad once in Sheridan, I was about Yevgeny’s age. It wasn’t a fun family trip.”

Ian nodded, not sure what to add to that. He could ask Mickey if his mom was still around (since he had found absolutely zero information about her), or how his dad died, but both of these subjects felt a little awkward to bring up and would probably expose the fact that Ian had looked him up online.

“How’s Yevgeny doing?” Mickey asked, saving Ian from having to come up with anything else to talk about.

“He’s doing okay. He’s talking a lot more – he was barely speaking to me when I first met him. He’s still doing good in school, and he’s eating quite well. He tells me he misses you though.”

Mickey smiled a little at that and Ian thought he saw a blush creeping up on his cheeks, but Mickey regained his tough guy composure too quick to be certain.

“What about his math? He’s always had some trouble with numbers, he doesn’t quite get the logic of it all, are you helping him with that?”

“Yeah, I do. I try at least. It’s never been my strong suit either, but second grade math is still something I can manage. And worse comes to worst, I have two brilliant brothers who can help.”

“Good.”

Mickey bit his cheek and looked around, seemingly searching for something else they could talk about.

“We’ve spent some time with Mandy and Sandy the other day.” Ian blurted out. “Yevgeny was very happy about that.”

“Oh yeah?” Mickey smiled again. “Did they buy him a ton of ice cream again?”

“Fuck yeah.” Ian rolled his eyes. “He was high on sugar for the rest of the day, putting him to bed was fucking impossible until he literally crashed around 9.30.”

“They always do that, fill him up with sugar and buy him a ton of new toys, but they’re never around to pick up the pieces, I have to do all the hard fucking work.”

“Yeah.” Ian said with a little smile himself. “I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck for?”

“That you’re here, and that your child is taking care of by a complete stranger.”

“Not your fault, nothing to be sorry for. I’m just glad he’s not in a group home or with a fucking psycho, you’re not so bad.”

“Thanks.”

It was Ian’s turn to blush and he tried to hide it by looking over at the clock. He wasn’t exactly sure how much time they had left. There was one more thing he wanted to talk about but he wasn’t sure how to start that conversation. After almost a minute of staring at the clock and at its little hands move around, he decided to just bite the bullet.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you...”

“Yeah?”

“Yevgeny has mentioned his mom, and how he misses her...”

Mickey’s expression grew darker and Ian immediately regretted talking about this.

“She’s fucking gone, that’s all you need to know.” he spat before standing up. “We’re done for today. Next time bring the kid.”

A guard almost ran toward them when he saw Mickey stand up. He grabbed his arm and Mickey let himself be dragged out of the room as Ian just sat there, still at a complete loss as to what had happened to Yevgeny’s mother and why she was such a touchy subject.

********

Mickey walked back to his bunk and decided to stay there for the rest of the afternoon until dinner. He lied down on his back, staring at the metal slats of the bed frame above his head. The good thing about prison is that it gives you a lot of time to think, and not running drugs or shiving people gave Mickey plenty of time to think his life over, maybe even too much time. He had only been in here for a few weeks, and he had already written his memoirs inside his head. Today’s thought topic was that fucking redhead taking care of his kid. It was bad enough that the guy was taking his place and doing a good job of it, but did he also have to be that curious that he absolutely had to know about Svetlana?

The hardest thing Mickey had had to overcome his in life wasn’t a shitty childhood in a shitty neighborhood, or too many incarcerations from a young age due to the “family business”, no the hardest thing he’d had to overcome was coming to terms with his sexuality. His father had made it very, _very_ clear from the start that being gay was not okay, and Mickey had grown up in that bubble of self-loathing and internalized homophobia he couldn’t share with anyone. He hated himself more than he hated anything else, but at the same time he was a horny teenager incapable of locking away his desires, so at one point he had to act on it. That was the only time he was thankful his dad was a piece of shit who didn’t care about what his children did on a daily basis, it allowed him to take advantage of that blind spot and experiment with guys. Never more than once with the same guy though, and always far from his home. He lasted a good few years like this, until his dad found out. To this day, Mickey still wasn’t sure how he had figured out about Mickey’s “preferences” but he had and the fallout hadn’t been pretty. The memory was a blur in Mickey’s mind as he had tried so hard to repress it, but he still remembered punches and blood, and then Svetlana. He vaguely knew her from being his dad’s favorite whore at the Rub N’Tug down the street, but he had never spent more than two minutes of polite nodding and silence with her, and then she was on top of him, and she was pregnant and he had to marry her. He never opposed the wedding, but it was killing him inside and the amount of alcohol he was consuming to go through with his new life was also certainly killing him outside.

As with his dad, Mickey wasn’t sure how Sandy found out about his sexuality because he never told anyone, but one day at some point during Svetlana’s pregnancy, Mickey’s cousin came out to him and let him know she knew they share that part of themselves. This moment was probably what saved him from himself. Mickey kept drinking and hating his life, but he wasn’t so self-destructive anymore because he knew that he wasn’t alone and that another Milkovich had gone through similar feelings of self-repression and could still come out on top and accepting of themselves. The other thing that changed his life for the better was Svetlana threatening him and forcing him to take care of Yevgeny. It took a very long time for Mickey to get to it and to stop resenting the child he had never wanted, and he was still helping reluctantly when Terry died. His father was shanked during one of his endless stints in prison, and when he was told, Mickey felt like he could finally breathe for the first time in his life. Something was lifted from his chest and that night he fell asleep crying and laughing at the same time. It was only a few days later that Svetlana disappeared without leaving a trace and, as much as Mickey had hated being her husband, he still worried about her. He knew she would have never abandoned her child, she loved Yevgeny with all of her heart, so for a while he believed that maybe she had been picked up by ICE, deported and sent back to Russia, but he figured that, as his husband, he would have probably been told, and even then, Russia had the internet, Svetlana would have found a way to contact him to let him know, so his current theory was that she had been killed by some psycho and left for dead somewhere where nobody had found the body. He knew he should have probably gone to the police for help, but that was viscerally against his Milkovich upbringing so he never did and he started resenting her for leaving him alone with their child. And now he had done the same thing to Yevgeny, he had left him alone to fend for himself in this cruel world. He hadn’t meant to though, this guy in the street had pushed his buttons and Mickey had just lost it on him, sending himself straight to Stateville.

“What’s up Milkovich?” his bunk mate asked, ripping Mickey away from his thoughts. “Thinking about your lady?”

Mickey hummed and ignored him. He wasn’t about to out himself to the all idiots in this place by claiming he didn’t have a lady, nor did he care to have one. He didn’t care for a guy either, he was perfectly happy raising his son on his own and only going out occasionally when his sister or cousin agreed to babysit so he could get some dick. He didn’t need more than that, he didn’t need a fucking relationship. If he ever did thought, if he ever considered bringing someone into Yevgeny’s life, it would be someone who would be okay with being a parent right off the bat, someone who would care for Yevgeny just as much as he did. He surprised himself thinking of the redhead he had met today. That Gallagher asshole was kinda hot, and he cared… Mickey broke his train of thoughts and sat up. Nope, not going there. Maybe he could go work out in the yard for a while, take his mind off things and focus on just getting out of here as soon as possible and going back to his lonely life with his son.


	5. Chapter 5

“Where’s my kid, Gallagher?” Mickey asked, looking angrier than Ian had ever seen him. “You said you’d bring him.”

“I know.” the redhead replied, not really sure what his excuse truly was this time. “I just needed to talk to you again.”

“Talk to me about what?”

“About Yevgeny.”

“Bullshit!” Mickey spat, standing up. “You’re so full of shit!”

Ian stood up too. Weirdly, none of the guards reacted. And, actually, now that he was paying attention to his surroundings, the visitation room was empty, it was just them, each standing on a side of the table. He looked back at Mickey who suddenly grabbed the back of his head and crashed their lips into a hungry kiss. Ian barely hesitated before he kissed back. It was sexy and passionate...

Ian jumped awake when he the sound of his alarm resonated in his bedroom. He took a moment to gather himself and realized what he had just dreamed of. He dropped himself back on his pillow with a groan.

“Oh, fuck!”

********

Ian hid under the covers for as long as he could after that dream, hoping that pretending it never happened would make it disappear from his memory. Nobody knew his subconscious had came up with that after all, and nobody would ever know. He decided to finally get out of bed when he heard Yevgeny wake up and start playing in his room. Ian went to remind him that he had to get dressed because it was a school day, and then proceeded to take the shortest, coldest shower he could endure.

Some mornings, he had the time to make Yevgeny pancakes or eggs for breakfast, but that was when he jumped out of bed as soon as his alarm rang, not when he lingered in bed waiting for a dream to be erased from his memory, so today was a ‘quickly pour cereals and milk into a bowl’ kind of day. Yevgeny didn’t care though, he liked that type of breakfast just as much as the others (kids don’t appreciate good cuisine anyway). Ian sat in front of him, sipping his coffee.

“I saw your dad yesterday.” he announced, surprising himself.

He had not meant to say it that way or to say it at all, he just wanted to let Yevgeny know they could visit his dad next weekend, not that he had seen him already. Yevgeny seemed interested though, he looked up at Ian with his big blue eyes.

“Where?”

“I went to visit him in prison.” Ian explained. “I wanted to meet him.”

“Why did you go without me?” Yevgeny whined, his eyes filling up with tears.

“Because you were in school.” Ian tried to fix. “But you and I are going to go next weekend. Your dad is very excited to see you.”

Yevgeny dropped his gaze toward his bowl.

“Okay.” he muttered.

Ian could have punched himself. This had gone all wrong, not at all what he had planned or hoped for, he was such an idiot.

___________________________

“Why are you asking me about Svetlana?”

Ian had half an hour for lunch on his good days, when he wasn’t called for an emergency at the last minute, and today was one of these good days. He had texted Mandy, who he truly quite liked now, and they were having a little picnic in the park behind the station. Okay maybe a _picnic_ was a big word for what they were actually doing, they were just eating sandwiches on a bench, but it was still pleasant enough to be considered a picnic, mostly thanks to the sunny weather. Ian had hesitated before texting her, thinking of Yevgeny’s reaction that morning, but the boy had seen Mandy recently, and she wasn’t his dad, also Bethany had advised Ian to stay on good terms with Yevgeny’s biological family, so all in all, he felt like he could. Plus, he needed friends. Sure, he got along well enough with his colleagues, but his best friend was his brother and that was just a little sad.

Of course he couldn’t help himself, as soon as they were done exchanging greetings and pleasantries, Ian had asked about Svetlana. It wasn’t that he was prying per say, it just felt important, for Yevgeny’s sake, to know what was going on with his mother. He was simply curious for ethical and parenting reasons.

“I don’t know anything about her.” he told Mandy. “Yevgeny has asked about her, and your brother refused to tell me anything.”

“You saw Mickey?”

“Yeah, I went yesterday. Alone. Shouldn’t have told Yevgeny that.”

“Probably not.”

“We’re going back next Saturday though. And from now on I will only go with Yevgeny, I promised everyone.”

Mandy laughed and took a bite of her sandwich. She chewed it slowly as the smile disappeared from her face.

“Svetlana left.” she said after she swallowed. “I don’t know where, but she’d never been on good terms with Mickey anyway. They had a shotgun wedding because she was pregnant, and I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t leave Mickey much of a choice, he had to ‘do the right thing’ and shit. It was just a South Side marriage because of a broken condom, it happens all the time. The fact that she split as soon as she could didn’t surprise me.”

Ian nodded. He supposed it made sense, it wasn’t rare to see that type of union in the South Side. He felt almost disappointed though, as if he had wished there was more to the story, or at least something else he could tell Yevgeny apart for the usual “I have no idea where your mom is”. He went back to his own lunch, not really appreciating the taste of his sandwich anymore. He was getting way too involved in this whole family, why couldn’t he be happy dealing with the shit from his own family? They had plenty to go around and keep him busy.

“So you met my brother, huh?” Mandy pointed out with a little smirk, taking Ian away from his thoughts. “What did you think?”

Ian shrugged. He couldn’t decently tell her about his dream, she was still Mickey’s brother and he was still only bonding with her as the foster parent to her nephew, this wasn’t high school gossip with his BFF.

“He’s pretty much what I expected.” he said, going the safest route. “And it was nice to see how much he cares about his son, some children who end up in foster care have parents who couldn’t give two craps about them.”

“Yeah.” Mandy sighed. “We had a shit dad and I guess Mickey is trying to compensate for that, doesn’t want Yevgeny to end up as fucked up as we are.”

“I get that.” Ian admitted. “I had shit parents too, and I never met a foster parent I liked, so I guess I’m trying to compensate too.”

Mandy smiled fondly at him and raised her bottle of water.

“To being better than all of our shit parents.” she toasted, and Ian pressed his own bottle lightly against hers with a grin of his own.

“Hear, hear!”

********

When Ian arrived at Yevgeny’s school for pickup later that day, he was immediately taken aside by his teacher. He was tired and ready to go home, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with PTA or whatever else the teacher had in mind.

  
“Mr Gallagher?”

  
“Yes?”  
  
“You are Yevgeny’s foster father, right? I’m Miss Tena, I’m the substitute teacher for Yevgeny’s class while Miss Miller is on maternity leave. I started on Monday.”

Ian nodded, yes he did remember her introducing herself to him just a few days prior.

“What can I do for you?” he asked with all the politeness he possessed.

The teacher glanced quickly at Yevgeny who was chatting animatedly with a friend a few feet away, and then turned her attention back to Ian with a little apologetic smile.

  
“Well, we’ve had a bit of an issue today.” she explained. “Yevgeny bit another student. I had to write an incident report.”

  
“ _Yevgeny_ did that?” Ian repeated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I saw him. And I was surprised too, he has been such a lovely student for the rest of the week, and Miss Miller only had good things to say about him, but today I don’t know what happened, he was acting out all day.”

Ian let out a small sigh, the guilt bubbling up inside of him. What if Yevgeny was still upset about him visiting Mickey without him? He tried his best to keep his composure and gave the teacher a small smile.

  
“Thank you for telling me, I will talk to him.” he promised. “Is the other child okay?”

  
“Yes, it was just a little bite, it’s mostly the sudden change in behavior that worries me.”

Ian looked over at Yevgeny and his friend. Yeah, it was worrying him too…

They went home in relative silence after they left the school, which was out of character who both of them, when Yevgeny wasn’t blabbing incessantly about his day, it was usually Ian who asked him a ton of questions. Ian gave himself and Yevgeny a few minutes after they arrived at the apartment before he sat the boy down for a ‘big talk’ moment. He had been dreading one of those since he had started fostering the child, and he knew he had been lucky so far and Yevgeny had been an angel, but he also knew that he was now forced to face a parenting moment no parent ever wants but has to go through at some point or another anyway.

“I talked with your teacher today, Yev.” he started softly. “And she told me that you weren’t very nice to another child in your class. Do you want to tell me more about it?”

Yevgeny crossed his arms over his chest and gave Ian the chin.

“No. You’re not my dad, I don’t have to tell you.”

Oh boy, they were there, the ‘you’re not my dad’ zone… Ian just had to buckle down and dive right in.

  
“That’s true.” he agreed. “I’m not your dad, but I have to take care of you and if there is something wrong, I wish you would tell me.”

  
“Why?” Yevgeny asked with some anger in his voice. “I don’t want to stay with you! I don’t like you anymore, I want my dad!”

  
“We are going to see your dad next Saturday, okay? Maybe you can tell him then what makes you angry?”  
  
“What makes me angry is that you’re trying to steal me!”

That was not what Ian was expecting.

  
“What?” was all he managed to say to that.

  
“I didn’t go see my dad with you, and Benji said that’s because you’re trying to steal me and keep me for yourself! I don’t want you to be my dad, I want my real dad!”

It was indeed not what Ian was expecting, but it broke his heart to hear such words of fear and worry from a child.

  
“I’m not trying to steal you Yevgeny.” he said as gently as he could. “And I’m very sorry I went to see your dad without you, but I promise I will bring you with me every time I go see him from now on. And as soon as he gets out of prison, you will go back to live with him. I don’t want to be your new dad, but I do care about you and I hope you trust me enough to tell me when you’re hurt or sad or angry, and I’ll do my best to help you.”

Yevgeny kept his arms crossed and his eyebrows frowned, but Ian saw a tear roll down his cheek.

“Can I give you a hug?”

Yevgeny silently nodded and Ian wrapped his arms around his fragile little body. He muttered comforting words against his hair, but he wasn’t sure if they were more aimed at the child or at himself.

___________________________

The days after that little kerfuffle dragged on. Yevgeny was still cautious around Ian, and Ian wasn’t sure what to do anymore to prove himself and show Yevgeny he wasn’t trying to steal him. The day of the visit with Mickey didn’t come soon enough. Waking up that Saturday morning, Yevgeny was actually excited and in a good mood for the first time in a week. For once, Ian was grateful for that level of energy, he wasn’t worried about Yevgeny anymore, and it allowed him to mostly forget about that one steamy dream he’d had of Mickey, instead focusing on getting the child fed and ready for the hour-long drive.

The prison on Saturdays was more kid friendly. Contrary to that weekday Ian had first came by, Saturday was the day for families. There were several other children around and Yevgeny made a friend while waiting for Ian to sign the paperwork, a little boy around his age who was also visiting his dad.

“I’m here with my mom.” the child said. “Who are you here with?”

“I’m with Ian.” Yevgeny explained. “He’s like my other dad while my real dad is in prison.”

The boy’s mom looked at Ian judgmentally when Yevgeny said he was “his other dad” and Ian felt the need to explain and apologize.

“I’m his foster parent.” he told the woman with a smile.

She smiled in return and nodded her understanding of the situation, but Ian felt uneasy with himself. Why was he always like that in here? What if the mom had believed Yevgeny had two dads and imagined all sorts of gay scenarios in her head, would it have been so bad? He was gay after all, why did he feel the need to go back in the closet for a stranger? Why was he so afraid of what people thought in this damn prison? His mind took him back to that dream he’d had after his first visit. Could it be because maybe a part of him wanted that ‘two dads, gay scenario’? No. He shook his head at the thought. No, it was simply because he didn’t want to create trouble for Mickey that would result in Yevgeny’s visits to be canceled, that was it. Nothing else.

Like last time, they followed the guard into the room and sat at a table. Yevgeny jumped off his chair as soon as he saw his father walking through the door and ran toward him. Ian tried to stop him and contain him, but Yevgeny wasn’t the only child to do that and the guards seemed more lenient toward them than toward adults. Yevgeny showed his dad to their table and Mickey sat in his chair with a little nod and a “What’s up Gallagher?” directed at Ian before focusing his entire attention on his son who had a million and one things to tell him. Ian let them be, drowning their conversation as background noise and just observing the way they interacted with each other. The obvious care and love they shared made him smile, while tugging at his heartstrings, reminding him he didn’t have that, he was just ‘borrowing it’ for the time being.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a new and different POV in this chapter just for the fun of it 😉
> 
> And also, Mickey thinks and does some questionable things but please remember he’s in prison and I, the author, do not necessarily condone this type of behavior.

The weeks went by with Ian and Yevgeny going down to Joliet every Saturday. Mickey never said more than two words to Ian each time, but Ian didn’t mind, that was not what he was there for. The last time they went though was the day before Ian’s birthday and Yevgeny told his father so, as he was excited about the party at the Gallagher’s the next day (he had planned on eating a lot of cake and had made sure that Ian knew that). Mickey turned to Ian with a smile and wished him a happy birthday, which twisted Ian’s insides into happy knots. That night, he had another sexy dream about him and woke up with a hard-on. He grabbed his phone and scrolled through it, reading and replying to various birthday messages to try to distract himself. He had downloaded the Grindr app a few days prior, not really sure if he was going to use it but he liked to have the option. He really needed to get laid and maybe anonymous sex with a random stranger could be the solution...

He dragged himself out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Once he was under the shower spray, hot water running down his back, he realized that the door was locked and the sound of the shower would drown out any noise he could make... He ran his hands down his body to his neglected cock. He didn’t need much to get aroused, but Mickey’s smiling face briefly crossed his mind, which he tried to supress as best as he could, this wasn’t right... He tugged a few times and bit his lower lip. And then there was a pounding on the door and Yevgeny’s voice yelling “I need to pee!” Ian groaned (not in the good way) and dropped his head against the wall.

“I’ll be out in a minute!” he shouted back.

Another missed opportunity and another blue balls moment. He was really going to end up exploding from the repressed feelings. He stepped out and dried himself quickly. After putting his sweatpants back on, he left the bathroom and opened the door to let Yevgeny rush in. The boy was really in a hurry. Ian let him be and went to make himself some coffee. Today was going to be a long day and he really needed it…

********

The party had already started when they arrived at the Gallagher house and everybody screamed “Surprise!” when Ian walked through the door as if he wasn’t aware of what was going on and hadn’t partly helped plan it. It made Yevgeny very excited though, so that was something, the child was genuinely happy, which hadn’t really been the case lately outside of the prison visits. Ian received hugs from all of his siblings and long-time neighbors and friends Kevin and Veronica.

“One year closer to 30.” Lip said to him. “How do you feel?”

“Old now that you’ve mentioned it.” Ian replied with a fake outraged face. “But still younger than you, so that’s that.”

“Don’t listen to him.” Fiona, who had exceptionally traveled back to Chicago for the occasion, said in her mama bear voice. “Being in your 30s is awesome, better than your 20s.”

“I am not 30!” Ian defended himself. “What is wrong with you all? Give me a few more years!”

“I hope I’m not still single when I get to your age...” Debbie felt the need to add.

“Okay.” Ian sighed. “I’m gonna go drink.”

He left all of his siblings and their depressing remarks behind and headed for the kitchen where he found a steady supply of alcohol and went straight for the vodka. Fiona joined him after his first drink and leaned back against the counter next to him.

“Pour me a shot?” she asked, and Ian complied. “You didn’t even introduce me to your kid before you hid from your own birthday party to start drinking.”

She said it lightly but Ian sensed that she was a bit upset by it. He put the bottle of vodka back where he had found it and grabbed a beer.

“Sorry.” he said with a truly apologetic smile. “Come on, let’s go say hi.”

He left the kitchen with his beer in hand and found Yevgeny on the couch, already in deep conversation with Kevin and Veronica’s twin daughters, Amy and Gemma, who were telling him very condescendingly that they were smarter than him because they were older by a couple of years.

“It’s true that Yev doesn’t know as much stuff as you do because he’s a bit younger.” Ian intervened, sitting down at their level while he was talking. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not just as smart. You can show intelligence in different ways.”

“Yup, I’m smart!” Yevgeny gloated, puffing his chest.

Ian felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Fiona observing the scene with a proud smile on her face.

"Hey Yevgeny." he called, turning back to the child. "That's my big sister, Fiona. I think she’s very excited to meet you.”

“Hey Yevgeny.” Fiona said while also sitting down. “Ian has told me a lot about you. I heard that you really like superhero comics. Did you know that Ian loved them too when he was your age?”

“Yes.” Yevgeny said. “He told me the comics I have in my room were his comics he had when he was a child like me. Is it true that you took care of Ian when your mommy left?”

“It is.” Fiona replied, glancing back quickly at her brother, as if she was surprised he had disclosed such personal information to a young child he was only taking care of temporarily.

“My mommy left too.” Yevgeny added. “And my daddy is gone _for a little while_ Ian says, but he’s going to come back, he’s just in prison.”

Fiona seemed truly interested in Yevgeny and in the easy way he talked about his family and their drama, she really engaged with him. Amy and Gemma had already left, moving on to other more interesting things, so Ian stood up too, he liked the idea of letting Fiona and Yevgeny have their own conversation. He found Lip and Carl standing in a corner, talking about random stuff, and decided to join them. Carl clapped his shoulder and wished him a happy birthday one more time.

“Did anybody give you their present yet?” he asked.

“Not yet.” Ian shook his head and then brought the beer bottle to his mouth, taking a quick sip. “But aren’t we supposed to do that after the cake or whatever?”

“Yeah, I think that’s what Debbie planned.” Lip nodded.

His siblings had asked him what present Ian would like, and he hadn’t known how to respond, there wasn’t anything material that interested him. He had told them to surprise him but he was pretty certain they had gotten him a fancy new watch, there had been suspicious questions hitting at that lately. There was something though that he wanted, something that had been nagging at him since he had woken up that morning with an itch he hadn’t been able to scratch, and he knew Lip and Carl would have no problem helping.

“Hey.” he started, hesitating. “Would it be weird if I like, left the party for an hour or so, leaving Yevgeny here?”

Lip and Carl exchanged a look.

“Why?”

“Just, forget it.” Ian sighed.

“No, you need to tell us now.” Carl pointed out. “You can’t just say something weird like that and then tell us to forget it.”

Ian took a quick look around, making sure nobody was listening in on their conversation, and when he spoke again he dropped his voice to a discreet volume.

“I just...” he struggled. “I need to get laid, okay? I can find a guy on Grindr under five minutes, go meet him, get that itch scratched and come back like nothing happened.”

Lip and Carl exchanged another look, that time tinted with laughter.

“I mean… If that’s what you want for your birthday...” Lip shrugged.

“We’ll cover for you.” Carl assured. “We can tell everyone you have a quick work thing to deal with, like you forgot to iron your uniform or some shit, and we’ll keep your kid entertained enough that he won’t even notice you’re gone.”

“Thanks.” Ian smiled. “Don’t give him too much sugar though.”

“We’ll do what we’ll do!” Carl exclaimed. “One favor at a time.”

********

Yevgeny had heard people talking about his house and call it _unsan_... _unsanitany_? He didn’t know what this word meant exactly, but he knew it had something to do with all the stuff his uncles always left lying around and that pissed his daddy off. His daddy always called them “stupid”, “idiots” or, Yevgeny’s favorite, “Dumb and Dumber”, this one made him laugh a lot. Yevgeny was only seven years old, but he had already seen and touched a gun (although his daddy got very angry and very scary when he did), he was used to beer bottles being left everywhere and cigarette butts filling up the ashtray. He even knew what a joint was, it was like a cigarette but that made people all funny and weird. Looking around at the Gallagher house, it didn’t feel very different than his own. There were the beer bottles, the cigarettes, the joints, the only difference was that he hadn’t seen any guns yet. He missed his home sometimes but mostly because he missed his daddy, it was hard to admit but he actually liked Ian’s apartment better: it was always clean and he had an awesome bedroom, and it was close to a park, they didn’t have to take the L to get to it or to go to the scary playground where all the bad kids hung out. He just wished he could live with his daddy in Ian’s apartment...

The Gallaghers weren’t too bad though, Ian’s brothers and sisters were nice to Yevgeny, and he really liked Franny. They were the same age and she showed him her room with all of her toys, she had some cool stuff. Franny kept saying they were cousins, and even if Yevgeny knew it wasn’t true, he wished it was. The only problem was that they had to play with Freddie too, “because he’s a cousin” Franny said, but Freddie was a baby. He wasn’t a baby-baby, he could walk and talk and all, but he was younger and didn’t understand their games, so he was a baby, and Yevgeny didn’t like to have babies around when he wanted to play big kid’s games. Sometimes he wanted to shout bad words like his daddy, but Ian had promised that if he acted well and stayed nice to the other kids he could have an extra slice of cake, and Yevgeny was really looking forward to that, so he kept a smile on and tried to explain their game to Freddy even if he had to repeat it several times because the baby didn’t understand the rules.

********

Ian had been absolutely right: finding a guy on Grindr ready to bang right then and there had taken less than five minutes. He had jumped on the L, met the guy at his place, and done the deed without much foreplay (that wasn’t what he was there for after all). After it was done and Ian was already getting dressed, the guy had rolled on his back and crossed his arms behind his head, leaving his very naked body exposed.

“You don’t want to stay? We could go again for round two in a bit...”

“Thanks, but I’m good.” Ian admitted. “This was nice and all, but it was a one-time thing only.”

He thought he saw the guy deflate a bit, but he ignored it, put his shoes back on and left the apartment with a brief “See ya!” before hopping back on the L for the return trip to his party. It hadn’t been the best sex ever, but it had been adequate, and it was nice to finally bring an orgasm to completion after all this time. The itch had been scratched, but Ian still didn’t feel completely satisfied, and he knew that no amount of one-night-stands with strangers could ever fulfill this need growing inside of him for intimacy and affection. He knew that he would always feel like something was missing, something just barely out of reach that would complete him, until he found the one person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, the person he wanted to go to sleep to every night, and wake up with every morning, the person he would want to have kids and a forever family with, not just temporary sex and a temporary kid.

********

“Yo Milkovich!” Fernandez yelled while walking by Mickey’s bunk. “Want in on my little side hustle?”

Mickey rolled his eyes and ignored him. The guy was not only an idiot but also most likely a snitch who was trying to get him caught red-handed in some shady business just to earn some favors with the guards. His lack of subtlety actually kind of reminded Mickey of his brothers, which brought a small smile to his lips. Fernandez called his name a few more times and Mickey ignored him until he went away. Once the coast was clear, he dropped the magazine he was going through without really paying attention, and he made his way to the bathroom. It was usually empty around that time of the day and he knew Luke would be waiting for him. He was a newbie around, a little twink that got caught for possession. On his first day, he had found Mickey sitting alone at lunch time and had sat with him, quickly offering him his body in exchange for protection. Mickey wasn’t usually one to go for this kind of things, but he was bored, lonely and horny, and after a little research he had found out that Luke wasn’t involved in any gang and didn’t know anyone on the inside that would put him in danger, meaning the “protection” he needed from Mickey would be pretty easy and wouldn’t put his early release in jeopardy, the only thing he had to do was to hang out around the kid and look scary, and that in exchange for blow jobs and a tight ass available whenever he wanted it without even outing himself, he was simply ‘prison gay’. In other words, a pretty sweet deal.

“So, you got a girlfriend on the outside?” Luke felt the need to ask even though he was already on his knees and pulling Mickey’s pants down.

Okay, maybe the one big flaw in the whole plan was that Luke was fucking chatty and Mickey hated that.

“Just shut the fuck up and start sucking, man.” he ordered, already counting the minutes until it was over and he could just return to his bunk.

He couldn’t wait to get out and only hook up with quiet guys who didn’t ask him the time of day and didn’t give a shit about his life.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a little shorter than usual, but some interesting stuff happen in it… 😏

Life always finds a way to come bite you in the ass, Ian had noticed. Or maybe it was just a Gallagher genetic trait: bad luck induced by bad choices. Like, for example, when you’re in the grocery store with your foster child, loading up on food for the week and that random guy you hooked up via Grindr once a few weeks ago is suddenly here, walking toward you. That was exactly what was happening at this very moment, and the guy stopped at Ian and Yevgeny’s level in the middle of the canned goods aisle to smile at Ian as if they’d known each other forever.

“Hi.” he said with this creepy little smirk. “Long time no see.”

Ian glanced between the guy and Yevgeny, trying to make it obvious to the guy that he was busy with his child while simultaneously trying to find a way to shield Yevgeny from the encounter.

“Hum, hi...” he said in reply, hoping that the conversation would stop there.

“Are you free tonight?” the guy had the audacity to ask.

“No.” Ian replied, tilting his head toward Yevgeny in an effort to clearly justify his answer. “I’m kinda busy.”

Finally, _fucking finally_ , the guy seemed to notice the child standing there and looking at them with his big blue eyes, taking everything in.

“Oh, I see.” the guy simply said. “Well... Have a good life.”

He almost seemed upset when he walked away, but Ian couldn’t care less, what concerned him was Yevgeny’s reaction. The boy was watching him with this knowing expression on his face. Ian just kept walking down the aisle, picking up cans of every existing beans known to man, and Yevgeny kept staring at him.

  
“Did you want to kiss him?” the child finally asked.

“What?” Ian answered so eloquently.

“The man we just saw, did you want to kiss him?” Yevgeny repeated slowly as if Ian was just too stupid to understand him.

“No.” Ian shook his head, and it was true, he didn’t want to kiss him. “But I have kissed him...” he confessed.

He had never talked about his sexuality with Yevgeny but what better time to do that than in the middle of a grocery store after running into a random hook up?

“Is he your boyfriend?” Yevgeny asked.

“No, he’s not my boyfriend.” Ian admitted. “I just kissed him once, but he was never my boyfriend.”

Yevgeny nodded, his eyebrows frowning into a thoughtful expression.

“Do you have any questions?” Ian wondered. “About boyfriends and girlfriends maybe?”

“No.” Yevgeny said. “I talked about it with my daddy already. He told me that some people have boyfriends and some people have girlfriends, like my auntie Sandy has girlfriends, and my auntie Mandy has boyfriends. He said that some people like boys, some people like girls, and some people like both.”

“Well...” Ian added with a smile, relieved that the conversation went easier than expected, and that most of the heavy lifting had already been done by Mickey. “I like boys, only boys, not girls.”

Yevgeny nodded again.

“Okay.” he said. “My daddy likes boys too, it’s fine.”

Ian was about to add to the conversation when the words Yevgeny had just spoken registered in his brain. Did he just...? Did he just say that Mickey was gay? Ian wasn’t sure how to react to that. A part of him was really, _really_ interested in the information, but he also felt very uncomfortable knowing about Mickey’s sexuality without him coming out himself, there was probably a reason if Mandy hadn’t told him yet, and Ian wasn’t sure if he should just ignore it and swipe it under the rug or if he should acknowledge it. He thought about it for about two seconds before he opted for the former, and locked what he had just learned in a little box buried deep inside his brain and labeled ‘to open later’.

“Do you want to make some chili this week?” he asked as he grabbed another can of pinto beans, eager to be changing the topic and to distract Yevgeny with some other thoughts.

********

The subject wasn’t brought up again until the following Saturday when Ian was sitting across from Mickey with Yevgeny at the small metal table in the visitation room at Stateville Minimum, and Mickey asked his son what he had learned this week. Instead of giving out a list of school subjects, like new words or a math problem, Yevgeny answered:

“I learned that Ian likes boys.”

Ian felt the skin of his face and neck turn a dark red, and he wished he could disappear underground and stay there until the day was over.

“You like _boys_?” Mickey repeated, the underlying meaning very clear in the tone of his voice.

“Oh no!” Ian exclaimed. “Not like that!”

“He likes boys like you likes boys, daddy.” Yevgeny added, saving Ian from a conversation even more awkward than the one they were having at the moment.

Mickey’s eyes opened a little wider when he understood that Ian liked boys as in “I’m very gay” kind of situation and not “I’m a pervert who likes little boys”, and a small smirk appeared at the corner of his lips.

“I like men.” Ian felt the need to say, to really drive the point home. “Not boys, just regular men...”

“Yeah, I got that.” Mickey nodded with a dash of exasperation, and maybe mockery.

“Hey, if Ian likes boys, and you like boys.” Yevgeny kept talking. “Maybe you could be boyfriends! Ian told me he doesn’t have a boyfriend, and you don’t have a boyfriend, daddy!”

This time, Ian covered his face with his hand in embarrassment. _Oh god…_ What was happening? Couldn’t this kid shut up just this once? He heard Mickey laugh and he slowly lowered his hand to his chin.

“That’s not really how it works, kiddo.” Mickey was explaining to his son. “You can’t just be boyfriends with someone because you say so, you have to actually like the person and spend time with them.”

“You spend time with him!” Yevgeny stated. “We come here every week. You don’t like Ian?”

His voice deflated on the last question, and Ian was glad to see that the boy seemed disappointed at the prospect of his dad not liking him. He hoped that it meant Yevgeny truly cared for him and didn’t understand how somebody else could not.

“I think Ian is a nice guy.” Mickey slightly stuttered, caught by his son’s invasive questions. “I just don’t like him like a boyfriend, I barely know him!”

“It’s okay, Yevgeny.” Ian said gently. “Your dad and I can still be friends and care for you without engaging in a romantic relationship. Sometimes being friends is better than being boyfriends.”

Ian sent a small smile in Mickey’s direction, which he returned, but Yevgeny wasn’t done and he kept asking about the difference between being friends and boyfriends, and “if you already like each other as friends, isn’t being boyfriends even better because you can kiss and stuff?”, to which neither Ian nor Mickey had a good answer to give him. In the end, Mickey settled the conversation by asking Yevgeny about what cool activities he had done at school recently and if he was excited for the summer vacation coming up, prompting Yevgeny to use the rest of visiting time to talk about all the things he wanted to do over the summer.

___________________________

Mickey spent the rest of his day after the visit replaying all the things his son had said. At first, he thought about Yevgeny’s summer plans and how happy the boy was to be off school and go to the pool because Ian had promised him he would teach him how to swim. He was glad somebody could do that, because Mickey himself had never learned and it wouldn’t have crossed his mind that going to the pool was an option for kids during the summer. He sometimes wondered if Ian was being a better father than he was, and that worried him, Yevgeny would be so disappointed when he would have to go back to live with Mickey and wouldn’t have all his cool toys and comics and his dad would never bring him to the pool. But that was a thought for another time, Mickey still had almost a year to go, and Yevgeny was happy for now so that was all that mattered.

After he made his peace with his qualities as a father, Mickey started thinking about the other part of the conversation, the part where Yevgeny unceremoniously announced that Ian was gay and suggested that him and Mickey could become a couple. The moment his son had said those words, Mickey had had heart palpitations. Serious relationships had always scared the living shit out of him, so Yevgeny wanting his dad to be in one, and with his amazing, way too hot foster parent on top of that? It sent Mickey spiraling into never-ending self-doubt, self-depreciation and overwhelming pressure. Ian was very clearly a white picket fence, poster gay relationship and dog with a little sweater kind of guy. Mickey knew he was originally from the South Side, but the man had clearly risen to heights Mickey would never reach and he wasn’t going to start pinning after him just because his son wanted him to when he knew he could never be good enough for him.

Except he kinda was, pining after the guy. He spent the following days thinking about Ian, from wet dreams he tried to hide when he woke up, to just day-dreaming about a perfect little family with him and Yevgeny. He thought about Ian being on his knees when Luke was sucking him off, he thought about Ian when he was eating his dinner and wondering what it was like to be on a real date. He could not stop and he hated himself so much for it. He was waiting for their next visit with the utmost impatience just as much as he was dreading it. He even considered doing something stupid that would send him in solitary or revoke his visitation rights for a while, but then he thought about his son and he just couldn’t do that to him, he would just have to find a way to get his head out of his ass and keep himself under control.

___________________________

Ian was on his break at work on a Tuesday when he received a call from an unknown number. He picked up and heard an electronic voice asking him if he accepted the charges for a collect call from Stateville Correctional Center.

“Yes. Accept.” Ian rushed to say, and then heard Mickey’s voice greet him with his usual “Hi, Gallagher.”

“Is everything okay?” Ian asked immediately.

Mickey had never called him and Ian already imagined what kind of horrible reasons he could possibly call him for.

“Yeah.” Mickey said with a little chuckle at Ian’s panic voice. “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to apologize for Yevgeny the other day, and what he said, you know, about you...”

Ian sighed in relief: Mickey was simply calling him because his son had outed him and then gone on to create some idealistic relationship scenario. Ian was already imagining Mickey half dying in the prison’s infirmary, he thanked a god he didn’t believe in that it wasn’t the case.

“It’s okay.” he smiled. “I’m sorry he outed you too, it was a little weird.”

“Eh.” Mickey said and Ian could picture him shrugging. “It’s fine, it’s not like it’s a big secret. And to be honest, I already knew about you, Mandy told me when I asked why she hadn’t fucked you yet.”

Ian laughed. He wasn’t really upset at that, he knew as soon as he told Mandy that she probably wouldn’t keep it for herself, and he understood Mickey wanting to know more about the guy taking care of his child.

“I’m not dating.” Ian confessed. “Like, I don’t bring guys home for Yevgeny to meet, if you’re worried about that. We ran into an old hook-up into the grocery store, it was awkward as fuck, and then Yevgeny asked questions, that’s how we came to talk about it, but that’s it.”

“It’s fine, Gallagher.” Mickey chuckled again. “You can date, I don’t give a shit. If you saw the slew of fuckheads Mandy brought home...Your taste can’t be worse than hers.”

“Well, thanks for allowing me to date, I guess?” Ian said, liking that little teasing dynamic they had going on.

“You’re very welcome.” Mickey replied. “I gotta go, Coleman is busting my ass to get the phone. See you Saturday?”

“Yeah. See you Saturday.”

The call hung up after that, and Ian was left staring at his phone with a small smile. Was he starting to actually like Mickey as a person? That was unexpected… He did dream about him a few times, but he never thought it would go further than just physical attraction...

********

Mickey hung up the phone and left fat-ass Coleman get his turn at his daily call. He walked back to his bunk slowly, keeping his head down. When he got there, he grabbed his pillow and punched it a few good times. Fuck, why did he have to call Ian? What he had to say to him was truly useless and could have certainly waited for the next visit with Yevgeny, but no! He had to ask Mandy for his number under false pretenses and had jumped to be first in line when the CO had called for phone time. What a desperate asshole he was, and he wanted to shoot himself in the head a little bit… He dropped down on his mattress, face first, and groaned into the previously abused pillow.

“Trouble with your lady?” his bunk mate asked.

“Fuck off.” Mickey grumbled, his voice muffled by the fabric.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me longer than usual to update. I wasn’t satisfied with this chapter, and it’s even shorter than the others. The next one will be better though, I swear.

“What are you thinking about?”

Ian looked up to see Mandy leaning on her elbows and watching him across the kitchen counter.

“Nothing.” he lied. “I think I just fell asleep with my eyes open.”

“Then go to sleep, I got this!” Mandy exclaimed.

It was a week into Yevgeny’s summer vacations and Ian had traded with a colleague to work nights, allowing him to be home during the day. The colleague had been more than happy about the exchange, Yevgeny loved having sleepovers at Lip’s or Debbie’s several nights a week (especially at Debbie’s because that meant he could spend time with “his cousin Franny”), and it kept Ian from having to find day care during the day for Yevgeny, meaning he could save money and actually spend time with him. He usually slept in until noon, letting the child watch TV and play by himself once he woke up, and then they spent their afternoons at the park or at the pool. And when Ian was really too tired, he either dropped Yevgeny off at Lip’s for a few hours or called Mandy or Sandy to come play with him at the apartment while he took a nap. Today though, he wasn’t that tired. He’d had a pretty mellow night at work and had been able to take a nap at the station during his shift, but he had still invited Mandy over because she had been talking his ears off about a movie she wanted to watch with her nephew for a few days now, and Yevgeny was always happy to see her. So no, Ian wasn’t drifting off because he was tired, he was drifting off because he was thinking about Mickey but refused to say so to anyone, and especially not Mandy.

Since that one unexpected phone call, Mickey talked to him further than his two-words greeting during their weekly visits at the prison, he asked Ian about his week, made jokes about the Milkovich family members Ian had met, and included him in his conversations with Yevgeny. At first, Ian had thought it was simply for the child’s benefits, to show Yevgeny that there was no competition between his real dad and his foster dad and they could both care about him without Yevgeny having to take a side, but then Mickey had started calling him during the week when he knew Yevgeny was at school, just to chat with Ian about mundane things. It took a while for Ian to accept they were actually friends. It had never been in his plans and he didn’t know what to do with that. He started by convincing himself he was only doing that for Yevgeny’s sake, as Bethany had told him several times to “build a good rapport with the biological family”, but then he realized he was actually looking forward to Mickey’s calls without ever knowing when he would call. It was a game of waiting and guessing, and Ian’s guts always did a little jump when he saw the number for Stateville Minimum flash on his phone screen. Mickey hadn’t called since Yevgeny had been out of school though, they had gone to visit him once already, and Mickey had been pleasant toward Ian as his new normal was, but he hadn’t called. Ian thought it was because it would be weird for them to talk on the phone while Yevgeny was around, or maybe because Mickey knew that Ian had a lot of activities planned for his son and didn’t want to interrupt their time of fun, but he did still drift off in his kitchen, sitting at the counter, wondering if Mickey was just going to stop calling for the whole summer.

“Go to sleep!” Mandy repeated. “Yev and I are just going to be in the living room watching the movie.”

Ian nodded and obeyed. He didn’t need to sleep but he did need to be alone for a little while, if only to keep pining after a man he knew he shouldn’t pine after. He told Yevgeny where he would be for the length of the movie and then walked down the hallway. His phone started ringing just as he closed the door of his bedroom behind himself, as if Mickey just knew he was alone and what he had been thinking about.

“Hey.” Ian greeted with a smile when he picked up.

“Yo.” Mickey said. “What’s up?”

“Not much.” Ian answered as he walked to his bed to go sit on it. “You’re the one calling me.”

He wanted to point out that it made him very happy, but he thought it would be too much and kept his mouth shut.

“I guess I am.” Mickey acknowledged. “There was some shit going down this week, not me, I’m still keeping my head down, but we all lost phone privileges for a while and a couple of shitheads were sent to Max.”

“Oh shit. You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t mix with that crowd. Just spent the week in my bunk doing fuck all.”

Ian’s smile hadn’t left his lips, hearing Mickey’s voice always did that to him. He imagined him laying on his prison bed reading a magazine and judging all the other inmates around him doing crazy illegal stuff.

“I’ve had the opposite week.” he said. “Yevgeny and I went all over the city. I have a new respect for teachers and school, keeping kids entertained and interested all day is a lot of work!”

Mickey laughed.

“You don’t have to do all that, man. He spent most of his vacations with me watching TV, never complained about it.”

Ian nodded even though he knew Mickey couldn’t see it. He didn’t want to tell Mickey because he didn’t want to sound arrogant or judgmental but he did have standards of parenting he was trying to uphold, and leaving a child in front of the TV all day was not why he had chosen to be a foster parent. Of course, he knew that some parents didn’t have a choice in that matter, and that he was really lucky to have the funds and moral support he had to be able to do all these things, and that’s why he didn’t say it to Mickey, it wasn’t his place to make such remarks, his job only extended to his time with Yevgeny, not to what the child did with his “real family”. Ian knew he held himself to impossible standards that weren’t sustainable in the long run, so he felt a certain sense of relief knowing that if he just gave up and left Yevgeny vegetate in front of the TV for a week, Mickey wouldn’t be mad at him for it.

“I like doing that though.” he confessed. “I wish my parents took me to the pool or to the lake when I was younger...”

Mickey hummed on the other side of the line, and Ian knew that he understood the feeling. They shared a moment of comfortable silence, like they did sometimes, before Mickey broke it with something Ian should have been expected.

“Hey, can I talk to the kid?”

“Yeah.” Ian sighed. “He’s just watching a movie with Mandy, I’ll got get him.”

“Thanks.”

Ian walked to the living room with his phone pressed against his chest. He paused the movie, and before Yevgeny could complain about it, Ian told him that his dad was on the phone. The movie was immediately forgotten, the boy grabbed the phone and started telling his dad all about his day. Ian sat on the couch next to Mandy as Yevgeny headed down the hallway.

“I thought I heard you talk to yourself in there.” Mandy said with a smile.

“I wasn’t.” Ian shook his head. “Not that crazy yet.”

“You were with Mickey for a little while though, before you came out to give Yevgeny the phone.” Mandy pointed out. “What were you talking about?”

“Stuff.” Ian answered.

He still didn’t want to talk to Mandy about that, and he felt the need to protect his little private garden of “things happening with Mickey he didn’t have an explanation for nor did he want to justify”. But Mandy kept looking at him though, and Ian was sure she knew exactly what he was thinking. He tried to distract her by asking her about the movie, and soon, Yevgeny was back, handing Ian his phone back, the call hung up on. Ian felt a pinch to the heart at that, something that looked like disappointed that he barely got to talk to Mickey today, and almost like jealousy that Yevgeny got all of the attention, and Ian despised himself for it, he wasn’t supposed to feel that way, especially toward a child. So he pocketed his phone, turned his lips into a smile, and suggested they resumed watching the movie together.

___________________________

When he got his first entire week-end off of the summer, Ian decided to organize a sleepover party at his place for the kids in his family, mainly because he wanted to repay Lip and Debbie for babysitting for free by offering them a night off from parenting, but also because Yevgeny had been asking him to invite over all of the Gallagher kids (and Kev and V’s daughters) for a while now. So they went to the store and bought a lot of junk food together, and then they turned the living room into a giant pillow fort so that all the kids could sleep there together and watch a movie at night. Yevgeny had chosen a cartoon everybody could watch, even “baby Freddie” (as he called him), and Ian had prepared enough popcorn to feed a whole army. Before all the kids were scheduled to arrive, Sandy had dropped by unexpectedly as she did sometimes, “just to check in”. Ian knew Mickey had asked her to do that in the beginning, and that she still doing now more out of habit and to see her nephew than anything else. Ian didn’t mind her so much anymore, and she was actually sort of nice when she tried, and even when she didn’t try, it was good to know that Mickey had someone so loyal in his corner.

“We’re having a sleepover party tonight!” Yevgeny told her excitedly.

“With kids from your class?” Sandy asked.

“No, with cousins!” the boy said.

Sandy looked at Ian with her eyebrows raised.

“Cousins?”

“My nieces and nephews.” Ian explained, and he knew what Sandy was about to say before she even said it.

“Yevgeny calls your nieces and nephews _his cousins_?”

Sandy sounded a little less angry than Ian expected when she said that though, mostly surprised and maybe a little amused.

“Getting all cosy with Mick’s kid, huh?” she added.

“I’m just trying my best.” Ian sighed, not wanting things to escalate.

Thankfully, there was a knock on the door just as Sandy seemed about to speak again, and Ian rushed to go open it. It was Debbie and Franny, and if Franny immediately went to Yev, Debbie’s eyes landed on Ian’s unwelcome guest and didn’t seem to want to focus anywhere else. Ian felt suddenly very invisible. Debbie and Sandy exchanged a few pleasantries, and Ian heard Franny whisper to Yevgeny:

“I think my mom wants to kiss your aunt Sandy.”

Ian nodded internally. Yep, that was happening, and he didn’t approve at all. In fact, he thought it was a terrible idea for Milkoviches and Gallaghers to get involved, it would only complicate things once Yevgeny would have to leave and return to his old life. Granted, maybe Ian was projecting a little bit, Debbie and Sandy had only exchanged “fuck me” eyes so far after all, they weren’t quite walking down the aisle yet, but he knew how intense his sister could be and how ugly things could get when her relationships ended.

“Okay.” he said loudly. “Sandy, you can leave now, the other kids won’t be long. Debbie, may I speak to you in the kitchen?”

Sandy left reluctantly, and Debbie watched her go before following her brother into the other room.

“What’s up?” she asked nonchalantly.

“Don’t even think about it.” Ian warned her.

“About what?”

“Fucking Sandy. Not gonna happen.”

As Ian could have predicted, Debbie got upset and defensive right away.

“Who are you to tell me what I can or can’t do with my body?!” she exclaimed. “I’m a liberated woman and I can sleep with whoever I want!”

Ian rolled his eyes at her at her usual proto-feminist rhetoric.

“I don’t give a shit what you do with your body.” he replied. “You can sleep with all of Chicago for all I care, but not with the aunt of my foster kid! I don’t want things to get ugly and messy.”

Debbie sighed and Ian watched the anger disappear from her face.

“Fine.” she agreed. “But I hope she’s a fucking asshole, because if you kept me away from the person who could have been my true soulmate, I will make you pay for it for the rest of your life.”

“You do that.” Ian nodded. “But in the meantime, don’t sleep with her.”

********

Yevgeny had showed Franny to his pillow fort after his aunt Sandy had left and Ian had disappeared in the kitchen with Franny’s mom. They both sat on comfy pillows and Franny said that the pillow fort was the best she had ever seen. Yevgeny was happy about the compliment, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what Franny had told him a few minutes ago about his aunt and her mom…

“If my aunt and your mom get married.” he wondered. “Does it mean we will be real cousins?”

Franny frowned to think about it.

“I think so...” she said.

“Then I hope they do.” Yevgeny declared, and he really did.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Mickey-centric chapter, yay!

Mickey wasn’t a fan of alarms, every time the electronic sound woke him up, he wanted to shout at it to “mind its own fucking business!”, but he also knew that being a functioning adult and a responsible parent implied waking up on time to start the day. So when the annoying little song Mandy and Yevgeny had picked for him rang in the quietness of his room that morning, he simply pressed the little red X on his phone screen and he sat up on his bed, stretching his limbs and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He fought the craving for a cigarette that early in the morning (he was trying to quit), and he got dressed, jumping into his jeans from the previous day that were just lying on the floor, and picking a clean shirt and sweater from his dresser. He then crossed the hallway to his son’s bedroom and knocked twice on the door before opening it softly.

“Hey bud, time to wake up.”

He left the door ajar to allow the light from the rest of the house to come gently stir his son awake, and he made his way to the kitchen. Breakfasts with him were pretty simple: two Pop Tarts in the toaster, sometimes a glass of milk or a glass of orange juice depending on what was in the fridge, and _voilà!_ Sometimes they switched Pop Tarts for cereals, mainly Lucky Charms, but that required always having milk and that was never a given, so Mickey preferred buying Pop Tarts. Once in a while, on very, _very_ rare occasions, for like birthdays and Christmas, he would buy pancake mix and bananas to chop into little pieces and make banana pancakes, but that remained a special breakfast for special days.

Mickey poured himself a cup of coffee and saw his sister coming out of her own room in an overly revealing shirt and lace panties.

“Fuck.” he groaned. “Nobody wants to see that shit, go get dressed!”

Mandy gave him the finger and sat at the table where she also poured herself a cup of coffee. Yevgeny came out only a minute later, in his pajamas, his hair sticking all over his head, and he sat on _his_ chair in front of the plate of Pop Tarts and glass of juice Mickey had prepared for him. They ate in relative silence, mornings weren’t easy for any of them, and it was rare enough that it was only the three of them without the hustle and bustle of the rest of Milkovich family, so they enjoyed it while they could. After Yevgeny was done eating, Mickey asked him to go get dressed and brush his teeth, and the boy obeyed without protestation, disappearing into the bathroom just as the front door burst open and Iggy walked in.

“Yo Mick!”

Mickey sighed loudly, his brother barging in with so much energy was never a good sign.

“What?” he spat.

“Need your help to break some kneecaps.”

“I don’t do that shit anymore.” Mickey said. “I’ve gone straight, remember?”

“Yeah right.” Iggy snickered, picking up on the other meaning of the word ‘straight’ that, admittedly, didn’t apply to Mickey at all.

Mickey rolled his eyes, his brother was such an idiot.

“Fuck you.” he said while giving him the finger.

“Come on, Mick.” Iggy pleaded. “I don’t know where the fuck Colin and Jamie are, and I can’t do it alone.”

“Take Mandy with you, or Sandy, she likes breaking kneecaps.”

“She’s shacking up with her new girlfriend downtown, some fancy daddy’s girl.” Iggy informed him. “She said she ain’t coming out of bed for the next three days.”

Mickey turned toward the chair his sister had been occupying until a minute ago, only to see it empty, Mandy having obviously ran to avoid helping Iggy.

“Fine.” he gave in. “But I’m only coming as back up and after I’ve dropped my kid off to school.”

“Deal.” Iggy smiled widely. “Now do you have any Pop Tarts left?”

Mickey rolled his eyes and left his brother there, choosing to go check on his son instead.

********

Once Mickey had decided to become a decent parent, after his father had died and Svetlana had disappeared, he had given up the family business of selling drugs and beating people to collect money, and he had found a job as security at the Bianco store in the Hyde Park Shopping Center. This place was fancy as shit, but that meant they didn’t like their stuff being stolen and Mickey could work up his pent up energy and anger whenever someone tried to leave without paying. He liked having an actual legal job that didn’t put him in trouble with the law and that Yevgeny could talk about with his friends at school without having the teacher calling Mickey to “discuss things”, and yet, every time one of his brothers or cousins needed help, Mickey had trouble saying no. There was a part of him that was still attracted to that life, a part of him that liked to cause trouble, and that was how he found himself late to work on that particular day, meeting with Iggy on the corner of 80th Street and La Salle, ready to beat up whoever his brother needed to beat up.

They had their routine prepared since they were kids: one of them would do the punching and kicking, and the other one would be on lookout for the police or goody-two-shoes passers-by. Iggy was the one supposed to do the beating that day, and he got a few blows in, but when the guy tried to run, Mickey was the one who caught up with him, having more practice due to his day-job. Luck was it though, he tackled the guy to the ground just in front of a house where the police had been called for a B&E. Iggy ran, of course, leaving Mickey alone with the bleeding shithead he had attacked, and two police officers looking way too happy to have someone to cuff that day. The trial went by pretty fast, the victim showing off his injuries and testifying against Mickey, Iggy being nowhere to be found, Mickey not wanting to snitch on his brother, and his public defender being a disgrace, it was a case opened and closed in less than a day.

And now, Mickey was sitting in prison for another year or so, hopefully less if he kept up with his good behavior, and his asshole brother who had gotten him in this shit hadn’t even come by to apologize, or at least to see how Mickey was. He was probably high somewhere without a single care in the world.

___________________________

Mickey still hated alarms, but he almost missed the one provided by his phone because the prison wake-up buzzing sound was just a torture device. He rolled out of bed, got dressed and made his bed up to the CO’s standards, this new routine engraved in his brain against his will. He missed Yevgeny, his sleepy head when Mickey woke him up on school day mornings, his favorite dinosaur pajamas on, slightly short on the ankles from being worn so many times for so many years, with the food stains Mickey could no longer wash out. He had tried to throw them away many times, but Yevgeny had asked for them every time they had “disappeared” and Mickey could just not say no to his son when he got all teary eyes like this. He wondered if Ian had tried getting rid of them too, and that got him thinking about Ian. Could he resist Yevgeny’s teary eyes? Could he say no to him? Mickey knew Ian cared about his son, but did he care in a “I have to due to my foster parent role” way or did he actually cared like Mickey cared? The thought that Ian might love Yevgeny scared Mickey. Ian had told him about Yevgeny being afraid that Ian would “steal him” from Mickey, and Mickey being a full-grown adult knew that it was just an irrational kid’s fear, but he did sometimes thought about Yevgeny growing a strong emotional bond with Ian that would be hard to break once Mickey would be out and back taking care of his son. What if Ian wanted to come visit Yevgeny once in a while, and what if Yevgeny wanted that too? Mickey was hoping for a clean break, if only to distance himself from Ian and the feelings he didn’t like having toward him, but he was worrying more and more that things might not be that easy. And what if Yevgeny didn’t care and it was Mickey who wanted to see Ian? What was next then? A friendship? A booty call? A _relationship_? Mickey had never had one of those except for the wife he had never wanted to marry in the first place, he wasn’t sure how to do it, how to be _a boyfriend_.

The guard came by for count, and Mickey shook the thought out of his head. Once again, he was thinking further than he should have about hypothetical things that he didn’t think were reciprocated. Every time he had talked to Ian, whether it was on their visits or on the phone, the guy had been nice, and they had laughed together, but Mickey didn’t think there was anything more between them for Ian than this weird pseudo-professional relationship. They were friendly, but probably not friends, and that was just as good because just as Mickey never had a romantic relationship, he never had any real friends either. He wasn’t sure he needed any, his cousin Sandy was a close to a best friend as he ever had and even her sometimes annoyed the shit out of him.

He walked along with everyone to the dining area for breakfast and sat, as usual, with Luke. They didn’t exchange a word and Mickey tried to focus all of his attention on his bland meal, even when his brain tried to bring him back to breakfast at his house with Mandy half naked most of the time, and random people from his family coming in and out as they pleased. Nostalgia wasn’t something Mickey was usually big on, during his last few stints in jail and juvie, his home life was still an awful mess and he absolutely did not want to be back in his house, this sensation was new, the feeling of missing a place and people, of wanting to go back to what he had before he was locked away.

“I think I’ll go to the showers around ten.” Luke announced out of the blue, and Mickey knew it was code for sex, the showers being usually clear of people mid to late mornings and early afternoons.

He didn’t feel like it though. Luke was boring him at best, and disgusting him at worst. The guy wasn’t bad himself, Mickey just wasn’t interest in sexual favors exchanged for protection, most of the time he had to force himself to be with Luke so what was even the point?

“No thanks.” he replied, keeping his eyes on his food. “Don’t feel like it today.”

“You’re okay?” Luke asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

Mickey snorted. Yeah, like he was going to talk to him. He stood up, grabbed his tray and emptied it in the trash before walking back to his bunk.

He waited until everyone was done with breakfast, and then went to his job assignment. He washed and folded laundry quietly until lunch, which he barely ate, sitting alone this time, and once again left early. He went to the showers this time though, knowing the crowd was still eating. He needed the privacy and loneliness that being in prison never allowed him. As expected, the stalls were empty, so Mickey lingered for a little longer than he usually did. He was washing himself slowly and leisurely with the shitty commissary soap when he heard the flimsy curtain protecting him from unwanted creepy eyes being pulled open. Fernandez was standing there with this vicious look on his face and two guys standing behind him.

“What do you want?” Mickey sighed.

“My fists are hitching.” Fernandez smirked. “Need to beat somebody up.”

The fight was short and anticlimactic. Fernandez and his guys were just as stupid as Mickey thought they were, they didn’t even think of bringing shivs, and Mickey got rid of them easily enough, leaving them struggling to breathe on the dirty bathroom floor. The real shit show started just as Mickey was exiting the room and a guard blocked his path. _Damn it_ , he had been so good until now and that stupid Fernandez was going to ruin his chance at an early release.

“I found them like this when I came in.” he tried but he knew the guard didn’t buy it in the way he just rolled his eyes and grabbed Mickey’s arm.

He yanked him along the hallways and Mickey wished he could punch his own head against the wall for how fucking dumb he had acted. He hadn’t even tried to walk away from Fernandez. Considering how easy it had been for him to beat these three guys up, it wouldn't have been that much harder to escape them by just walking away, but no, he had to fight.

The guard dropped him on the bench in front of the warden’s office and cuffed him there before going to stand in the hallway. Mickey tried to imagine what his punishment was going to be. Apart for the mark on his record, he could loose phone privileges for a while, or worse: visitation time. How would he explain that to Yevgeny? “Sorry son, you can’t come see me for a while because I acted like an idiot and used my fists instead of my words, exactly like I tell you not to do on the playground”? Mickey groaned loudly and he heard the guard snicker in the hallway, what a fucking asshole.

The warden showed up for what felt like twenty minutes later, and Mickey was ready to bet the fat fuck had gone out for lunch to the greasy dinner down the road (Ian and Yevgeny had told Mickey about it, they usually went there for a late afternoon sundae after their weekly visits). He exchanged a few words with the guard and then went to open the door of his office. The guard uncuffed Mickey and let him walk into the office as well, closing the door behind him and probably standing on the other side. The warden sat behind his desk and Mickey just stood there, not sure what he was supposed to do to not add even more offenses to his record.

“You can sit.” the warden offered, pointing at the sad wooden chair next to Mickey. “So Milkovich, huh?” he read off Mickey’s file.

Mickey nodded silently. He kept his hands on his knees and tried to appear as subdue as possible on the uncomfortable chair.

“I see a lot of those.” the warden added. “Family members I assume?”

“Probably.” Mickey said, his tone even.

“You’re only in here for a little misdemeanor, though.” the warden noted. “The Milkovich name is usually associated with worse.”

The warden looked up at him as if he was expecting an answer and Mickey, at a loss of what to say to that, simply gave him a little polite smile.

“Well, let me give it to you straight.” the warden spoke again when he understood that Mickey wasn’t going to. “You’ve been keeping low and doing good since you’ve arrived here, I haven’t heard your name once, no complaints. That’s very impressive for a Milkovich.”

Mickey could only agree with that: he had done his family name dirty by being on his best behavior.

“This place’s overcrowded.” the warden explained. “I have all the officials on my ass nagging me to make some room, so a little misdemeanor like yours? First one to go! Keep up the good work, don’t start any more fights in the shower, and you’ll be out in a week.”

Mickey sat there for what felt like hours but was probably just minutes. His mind was blank except for a very eloquent “Wait, what?”. He was getting out? In a week? He muttered a simple “Thanks.” to the warden and then felt the hands of the guard pull him to his feet and he was dragged out of the office and into the hallways again. The guard dropped him off in front of the phones and told him the warden was allowing him one phone call outside of hours to tell whoever he wanted to tell “the good news”. Mickey shook himself out of his daze and took a step forward toward the phone. He was getting out and he already knew who was the one person he needed and wanted to call.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me longer to update, I moved into a new place this week so I've been a little busy...

After Ian had received Mickey’s phone call telling him he was getting out in a week, Ian did three things: he texted Mandy, he called Bethany, and he panicked.

Mandy seemed visibly pissed that Mickey had told him and not her about his unexpected early release, but Ian managed to calm her down by lying out of his ass and saying it was only because Mickey wanted to tell Yevgeny first (which wasn’t true, the call had been very short and Mickey hadn’t mentioned his son at all, and Ian hadn’t even told the boy yet). After a couple of texts, the subject was dropped and Mandy had agreed that the best thing to do was for Ian and Yevgeny to go pick up Mickey by themselves while she would organized a surprise party with Sandy’s help.

Bethany was very calm and professional as usual, said it happened from times to times that parents were released from prison earlier than their set court date with no sign to see it coming that early, and she gave Ian a list of information and things to do moving forward.

And then Ian took a moment to sit with the knowledge that Mickey was going to be out in a week and what that would mean for Yevgeny, and him and their short-term future. He didn’t know how to tell Yevgeny, he wasn’t sure he wanted to, this was too much too soon, he wasn’t ready to loose the child and the comfortable routine they had settled in. And he wasn’t ready to see Mickey out of prison. He was having _feelings_ (or whatever that was) for the man and the fact that he was in prison protected Ian from making a move or even from projecting himself but now, Mickey would be out in the world, free, and Ian had to make a decision on whether or not he wanted to pursue anything with him and face the fact that he was falling for the one person he shouldn’t be falling for. All of this took him for a whirlwind and he let himself spiral for several minutes, sitting on his bed and trying to breathe through what he hoped wasn’t a panic attack.

Yevgeny was the one to drag him out of it when he suddenly came in Ian’s room asking if they could go to the swimming pool because there were only two weeks of summer left and he really wanted to make it count. Ian hid his panic well, schooling the expression on his face to pretend that nothing had happened and he told Yevgeny to go pack his swimming stuff.

___________________________

He didn’t tell Yevgeny. For the entire week that followed, Ian went back and forth in his head until he decided he would surprise the boy with his dad getting out. He knew it was probably really selfish because he didn’t want to have to answer any of Yevgeny’s questions about what the future would hold, and he wanted to have some time for himself to think about the situation, but he disguised it as a fun surprise for the child, and Mandy and Sandy went along with it, not saying anything. On their regular Saturday visit, Ian and Yevgeny drove down to Joliet, Yevgeny being his normal excited self, chatting Ian’s ears off about all the things he had to tell his dad, and Ian nervously gripping the steering wheel, hoping his real emotions didn’t show.

Yevgeny being only seven hadn’t realized they had left Chicago at a different time than they usually did, but he did start asking questions when he realized that the other people visiting weren’t here that day, and even more when Ian said they weren’t going in just yet.

“My daddy is going to be waiting for us!” Yevgeny said, sounding a little scared.

“Don’t worry.” Ian smiled. “We’re just a little early today and the doors of the prison are not open just yet.”

He made a mental note to talk to Yevgeny later about lying and the difference between a little white lie for a nice surprise, and a malicious lie to hurt people.

When they heard the heavy metallic door being pushed open, Yevgeny jumped to his feet, ready to run in, and he frowned and pouted when Ian told him to wait a little longer. It was only when they saw Mickey walking out in his day-clothes that Yevgeny’s expression melted into pure happiness and he ran to jump in his father’s arms. Ian stood back, his heart beating a little too fast with all the things he had tried to ignore that week. Yevgeny grabbed his dad by the hand and dragged him toward Ian’s (well, Tami’s) car.

“My dad is out of prison!” he told his foster dad excitedly.

“I know.” Ian smiled. “Surprise!”

Yevgeny jumped a little more in place, talking a thousand miles a minute, and Ian chanced a glance toward Mickey. Their eyes met as they both had the same idea at the same time apparently, and they exchanged a small, timid smile before their attention turned back to the child chatting non-stop between them. Yevgeny wanted to show Mickey the diner they always went to and have a sundae with him, Ian agreed, and they all settled in the little red car, Mickey and Yevgeny sitting together in the backseat because the child could just not let go of his dad.

********

Mickey never had a better “getting out of prison” day. Being welcomed and embraced by his child genuinely happy to see him and be reunited with him was the best feeling he had ever experienced. Yevgeny wanted to do everything with him and held onto him physically as if Mickey was going to leave again. They went to the little diner in Joliet that Ian qualified as “just okay” but that Yevgeny loved for the sundaes and the Saturday tradition, and Mickey gorged on what felt like the best burger ever after months of prison food. He barely exchanged a word with the redhead, Yevgeny monopolizing most of the conversation, but they sometimes shared little looks or smiles, especially when the boy was doing something so typically him that just made them laugh. Mickey wasn’t exactly looking forward to have a proper conversation with Ian, but he also knew it was coming and would have to happen at one time or the other. Part of him hoped they could just keep talking over the phone like they had been doing these past few weeks, it was easier that way. He panicked a little bit when they drove back to Chicago and Yevgeny fell asleep after too much ice cream and excitement, leaving Ian and Mickey alone to talk to each other, but Ian simply put some soft music on, the silence becoming simply comfortable and no longer weighted with the obligation of speaking to each other about all the things they should have been discussing.

Mickey hadn’t asked Ian to drive him back to the Milkovich house, he had just assumed that’s where they were going, so he was surprised when they stopped in front of a building Mickey wasn’t familiar with. Yevgeny woke up as soon as the car was parked, and he started talking again, telling Mickey he wanted to show him his room in Ian’s apartment and all of his toys, so Mickey guessed this was the place where his son had lived these past few months and maybe he was glad he could see it for himself. They went in, Yevgeny leading Mickey into the hallway and pressing the buttons in the elevator as if he was home, which Mickey realized he kind of was. This felt weird, Mickey knew that his son hadn’t stayed at their house but he had hoped he would have treated Ian’s house as if he was a guest there, not the owner of the place. They stopped in front of the door to leave Ian some time to find his keys and open it, and Yevgeny tugged on Mickey’s hand.

“You’re okay, daddy?”

Mickey saw that Ian had looked up at Yevgeny’s question, now watching Mickey as if he was also waiting for the answer, and Mickey forced a smile on his lips.

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, he was still happy to be out and reunited with his son, but the whole situation was hard to digest and to get used to. He barely had time to question things further though, because as soon as they walked in, a collective cry of voices screamed “Surprise!” and Mickey was surrounded by a couple of family members – his sister, his cousin and his brother – and also a few people he didn’t know. He forgot his internal turmoil for a moment, enjoying the presence of the only Milkovich people he actually liked. He returned Mandy’s hug, pounded Sandy’s fist and told an apologetic Iggy that all was forgiven. He was also introduced to one of Ian’s sisters, Debbie, who was apparently here as Sandy’s new girlfriend (which earned her a lecture from Ian when they announced it, even if Mickey didn’t quite understand why). She had a daughter Yevgeny’s age and Yevgeny told Mickey the little girl was his favorite cousin. Mickey felt a pinch to the heart at that, knowing he would have to separate them soon, but maybe if that thing between Ian’s sister and Sandy was serious he wouldn’t have to? He didn’t dwell on that for too long as he recognized Lip Gallagher, who he sort of remembered from school and didn’t really liked, but the oldest Gallagher only told Mickey nice things about Yevgeny and shook his hand while welcoming him home. Mickey then saw Lip talking quietly with Ian in the corner, and he wondered what was that about. He would have stared at them longer if Sandy hadn’t trusted a beer in his hand and hadn’t asked how many people he had shivved in jail.

“Zero.” he announced proudly. “I was on my best fucking behavior, and that’s why I’m here today.”

“Good for you.” his cousin smiled. “I’m not sure I could do what you did.”

They all sat around the living room in Ian’s clean apartment, sharing beers and the ton of food Mandy had procured from her new job. Lip left quickly after Ian thanked him for the car, which Mickey only knew because he was pretending to listen to Iggy and absolutely not following every single one of the redhead’s interactions. Sandy punched his shoulder at some point, raising her eyebrows knowingly when Mickey looked at her. He told her to fuck off and actually focused on his brother for real this time.

After a couple of hours of idle conversation and human contact Mickey hadn’t realized he had missed, Yevgeny came out of his room where he had been playing with the girl Mickey now knew as Franny and asked his father when they were going home. It warmed Mickey’s heart that his son wanted to be with him and was ready to leave Ian’s place without looking back. The others were engrossed in a fascinating conversation about weed so they didn’t hear nor notice the child, but Mickey saw Ian immediately perk up.

“Mickey can I talk to you?” he asked, standing up. “In the kitchen. Alone.”

Mickey nodded and told Yevgeny to go back to play with Franny. He didn’t really want to have _the talk_ with Ian right now, not when there were so many people around, he wasn’t ready. He still followed him though, and took a small, discreet breath to relax once the kitchen door closed behind him and they were alone in the room.

“Gallagher, I...” he started, thinking it would be better if he took the reign of the conversation right away.

“Look Mickey.” Ian interrupted. “I’m glad you’re out and spending time with Yevgeny, he’s clearly very happy, but you know you can’t just take him back, right?”

Mickey blinked a few times and he knew he look stupid. He thought this was going to be about feelings and shit, not about his son and whatever claim Ian had over him.

“The fuck are you on about?” he barked.

“Yevgeny is not going to come with you tonight, or tomorrow.” Ian explained in a truly condescending tone. “You’re not allowed to just _take him back_ , you need to go through DCFS procedure, prove to them that you can take care of him, that you have a job and that your house is safe...”

“Who the fuck cares about that?” Mickey almost yelled. “He’s my son, he’s coming back with me, DCFS can kiss my ass!”

“I care!” Ian almost yelled back. “Because if I let you take him, I will loose my license, and I want to be able to foster other children after Yevgeny. I wish I could tell you he can spend the night at your house just once, but I can’t! I need to be present every time you’re with him, me or a social worker.”

Oh, this was going to seriously piss Mickey off. He hadn’t thought for a second about having to jump through government dictated hoops after his release to just get his son. In insight, he probably should have, it made sense, but that didn’t mean it didn’t piss him the hell off.

“So what?” he exclaimed. “Yevgeny can spend the night at your fucking brother’s house without you there but not at _my_ house even though I’m his fucking father?”

“I’m sorry...” Ian said softly.

Mickey looked at Ian’s defeated expression. He wanted to go grab Yevgeny and make a run for it, but Ian’s words kept ringing in his ears, it didn’t feel right to punish the guy for a rule he hadn’t made and wasn’t responsible for, he had been a great foster parent to Yevgeny and could be a great foster parent to other kids thrown into the system, as someone who had been through the system himself as a child, Mickey knew he would have liked to have a foster parent who cared at least half as much as Ian did. He sighed. This situation fucking sucked. He hadn’t been raised to think about other people’s feelings, that wasn’t part of the Milkovich education, but he had grown into a better person these past few years, and the fact that he didn’t want to hurt this annoying fucking ginger was proof of that, even if it remained infuriating. Sometimes, Mickey wished he could go back to being the heartless Milkovich he used to be.

“Fucking fine.” he conceded. “DCFS can still kiss my ass, but I won’t get you in trouble.”

“Thank you.” Ian smiled, which comforted Mickey in his decision, he liked seeing that smile. He knew it was necessarily good news that he liked it, it meant _feelings_ , but he still liked it.

“You tell Yevgeny though.” he stated. “I won’t be the bad guy in this.”

He really didn’t want to be, just the idea that he’d have to go back to the Milkovich house alone that night broke his heart, he didn’t want to be responsible for breaking his son’s heart on top of that.

********

Stuck with the role of “the bad guy”, Ian followed Mickey back to the living room. He didn’t feel quite right at the idea of being the one telling Yevgeny that he wouldn’t be able to go back with his father that night and for a quite a while, it would only push Yevgeny further into the idea that Ian was trying to “steal him” and that was the last thing Ian wanted. So he waited, he procrastinated his task until it was the end of the night, and all of the guests were gone except for Mandy who stayed to help clean up, and Yevgeny was falling asleep on the couch.

“Hey there.” Ian said, patting the boy’s shoulder gently. “Are you ready for bed?”

Yevgeny groaned lightly and Ian suddenly had an idea.

“What if your dad slept here tonight?” he added, looking up at Mickey who raised both his eyebrows. “He could sleep in your room with you.”

Yevgeny stirred and sat up, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

“Really?” he said. “That’d be cool.”

Ian nodded, silently confirming that yes, _really_ , and a reassured Yevgeny started to walk toward his bedroom, not as energetic as he was earlier in the day.

“Seriously?” Mickey asked after his son was gone. “You’re hoping I’m gonna sleep on the floor in my kid’s cluttered room after spending months in jail on the thinnest mattress known to man?”

“Yevgeny and I organized a sleepover a few weeks ago.” Ian explained. “I haven’t returned the inflatable mattress I borrowed from my brother, it’s quite comfortable.”

Mickey bit his lower lip, as if he was thinking about it.

“We can talk to Yevgeny tomorrow, _together_.” Ian suggested. “I can lend you pajamas and a toothbrush.”

“Fucking fine.” Mickey sighed. “But I don’t wear fucking pajamas.”

“Sweatpants and a T-shirt then.” Ian smiled as Mickey walked away toward Yevgeny’s bedroom, giving him the finger.

Ian went back to cleaning. He threw a few empty beer bottles in the trash and then felt Mandy’s eyes on him. He turned around and found her staring at him with a knowing expression on her face.

“What was that?” she asked with a little laugh.

“Nothing.” Ian denied. “We’re just trying to get along in Yevgeny’s best interest.”

“So you don’t have the hots for my brother?” Mandy questioned as Ian looked back down at the trash bag he was holding.

“No.”

“Good. Cause that’d be weird.”

Ian silently nodded and finished cleaning up his apartment before finding that mattress and inflate it as Mickey went to take a long shower and Mandy went back home. He didn’t have the hots for Mickey, he really didn’t. He just liked the man in a friendly way. And he kind of found him attractive. A little bit. Mickey was a handsome man, it was simply a very objective observation anybody could have made, it didn’t mean anything more than that.

“So, about these sweatpants and T-shirt?” Mickey’s voice asked, stirring Ian away from his thoughts and forcing him to look up at Mickey coming out of the shower, hair still wet and wearing nothing more than a towel wrapped around his waist.

Right. So maybe Ian wasn’t just _objectively_ attracted to Mickey.


	11. Chapter 11

Ian spent the night tossing and turning, knowing that Mickey was just across the hall made him incredibly uncomfortable and immensely horny without being able to do anything about either of those things. Their relationship was weird and Ian had no idea how to deal with it. If there had been no Yevgeny to take into account, they would have been on each other hours ago, but the fact was that Yevgeny existed and was the whole reason they ever met in the first place. It was all strange and new territory to the redhead and he needed time to be sure of how he was going to proceed, if he was even going to proceed at all. And he wasn’t the only one tossing and turning apparently: he heard Mickey get up several times during the night. Ian guessed the other man couldn’t sleep because he was thinking along the same lines, or because he had spent the last few months in prison and wasn’t used to the quiet and safety of his surroundings. He did hope it wasn’t because of the mattress though…

When the sun pierced behind his curtains, Ian had gotten only a couple of hours of sleep at the most, and he knew he wasn’t going to get more. He grabbed his phone and wasted some time on it until he heard Yevgeny wake up around eight. Ian could hear the faint sound of a conversation through the doors and he felt this deep sense of jealousy: Yevgeny wasn’t his anymore – no matter how long the child would have to stay with him for legal reasons – and he needed to accept that, to step back and to let Mickey take his place back as Yevgeny’s full-time parent.

He found them in the kitchen about half an hour later, talking again over breakfast. Mickey had apparently made banana pancakes for his son.

“I hope it’s okay I used your food and your kitchen.” he said when Ian walked in, and there was a reproachful edge to it, which Ian could only pin on their conversation of the night before.

“It’s fine.” he forced himself to smile.

He went to pour himself a cup of coffee and noticed there was a plate of pancakes set aside on the counter.

“We made extra for you!” Yevgeny explained when he undoubtedly saw Ian looking at the pancakes.

“Thanks.”

This time he smiled for real. This was such a strange situation with a new dynamic none of them was used to, and they needed to find their balance, even if that took a while. He grabbed the plate and went to sit at the table where Yevgeny was already exposing the schedule he had planned for them today. The boy wanted the three of them to do things together, from going to the swimming pool again to Navy Pier where Ian had taken him one day, and Ian was glad he wasn’t totally excluded from their plans just yet.

“Sorry kiddo.” Mickey said after Yevgeny suggested they’d go eat pizza for lunch. “I have to go meet with my PO today. But maybe we can catch a movie in the afternoon?”

He said that last part looking at Ian, and Ian nodded his approval.

“Yeah, we should go see the latest summer blockbuster before school starts again.” he suggested. “And don’t forget you have some packing to do today Yevgeny.”

“Do I have to go?” the boy whined. “My daddy’s back now.”

“I know.” Ian said. “But it’s already paid for and everybody will be waiting for you. You’re going to have a lot of fun, don’t worry. And your dad will still be there when you get back.”

“Oh right.” Mickey caught up. “You have that five-day camp thing coming up.”

Before any of them knew that Mickey would be out so early, Ian had registered Yevgeny to a five-day “nature camp” out in the woods to the child’s request because several of his school friends were doing it. Bethany had already signed up on it after clearing every single one of the counselors through extensive background checks, and the daycare vouchers provided by DCFS had paid for it. Yevgeny had been very excited about it, he had gone with Ian to buy a sleeping bag and the basic camping gear required by the organism that planned the camp. It seemed like bad timing now, but Ian really believed Yevgeny should still go. He just hoped Mickey wouldn’t be opposed to it.

“Do I have to go daaaad?” the boy asked, as expected.

Mickey glanced quickly at Ian who tried to keep his expression blank and impartial, it wasn’t his decision to make.

“Yeah, I think you should.” Mickey said, looking back at his son. “You know, I have some stuff to take care of at the house and with DCFS so you should go and hopefully when you come back you can come live with me.”

“Why couldn’t I live with you?” Yevgeny questioned immediately. “I thought I was only staying with Ian when you were in prison?”

“That’s true.” Ian jumped in. “But you remember Bethany, right?” – Yevgeny nodded – “She needs to make sure that your dad’s house is clean and not dangerous before you go back there, and your dad needs to find a job so that he can buy you food and stuff. It’s going to keep your dad very busy for a while, so you’re going to stay with me for a little longer, but you can see your dad whenever you want. Then, when it’s all ready, you’ll go back to live with him.”

Yevgeny frowned his expressive eyebrows. His eyes traveled between Ian and Mickey for a moment while he seemed to be thinking things over, then they settled in the middle and he sighed.

“Okay.” he agreed. “But I want to see you every day.” he added in the direction of his father.

“I promise.” Mickey said. “Well, not when you’re in camp, but when you come back, we’ll see each other every day until we can live together again.”

Yevgeny then turned back to Ian.

“You’re not going to try to keep me?”

“I’m not.” Ian laughed. “I swear you can go back to your dad as soon as Bethany says it’s okay.”

“I don’t like Bethany so much...” the boy grumbled, and Ian was relieved for that, at least he had managed to not come off as the bad guy, putting the blame on poor and always helpful Bethany. Eh, it was not like Yevgeny saw her every day anyway.

___________________________

The week Yevgeny was gone for camp was the last week before the beginning of the new school year, and therefore the last week of working nights for Ian. He had been looking forward to these five days of alone time and he was still glad for them, even if the situation was different now. He went to work, and then came back home to a day of sleeping and lounging around in an empty and quiet apartment with no responsibility. He spent the first two days in bed, resting and taking advantage of having no kids around to catch up on all the jerking off he hadn’t done lately. He tried to keep Mickey out of his fantasies every time he tugged on his cock, but evidently his brain had no control over his imagination anymore because the other man popped up every time. He tried to watch porn to have other pictures in mind, but as soon as he was about to come, it was always Mickey who took over, Mickey on his knees in front of him, Mickey lying on Ian’s bed and taking everything the redhead gave him. Ian didn’t even know what Mickey’s preferences were sexually, and the man had big bossy top energy, but Ian liked to think maybe he would surprise him. And then, when it was over and he had came all over his hand and bed sheets, Ian felt dirty and guilty for having such thoughts. He had no idea if Mickey was sharing these feelings, they weren’t even friends, he was just Yevgeny’s dad and it all felt so wrong.

On the second night of his childless week, Ian could barely focus on work, too many things were bothering him, from Yevgeny leaving to his unrequited feelings toward Mickey, and when he woke up in the early afternoon of his third childless day, he decided it was time to go talk to Mickey. He didn’t know exactly what they were going to talk about, but they clearly needed to clear the air between them, maybe come back on these weekly phone calls they’d had when Mickey was in prison and what they meant, or what their relationship would be after Yevgeny would go back to live with him, if they would even had a relationship at all. Ian jumped into his jeans and a T-shirt and made his way to the dodgier part of the South Side where he knew the Milkovich house was.

He had a moment of hesitation just before knocking on the door, but then decided to grow some balls and go for it. There was no answer at first, so he knocked again and that’s when he heard Mickey’s grumpy voice yelling to “Hold your fucking horses”. He opened the door a few seconds later and his already angered expression darkened when he saw Ian.

“The fuck you’re doing here, Gallagher?” he barked. “You’re stopping by to tell me you’ve filed adoption papers to keep my son?”

The question surprised Ian. _That_ was what Mickey had on his mind? Their conversation was going to be very different than what he had expected.

“What? No!” Ian exclaimed. “You really think I want to adopt Yevgeny?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Mickey spat. “You seemed pretty desperate to keep him for longer than I thought. This whole DCFS shit could just be a lame excuse for you to get your way.”

Ian opened his mouth, then closed it. He wasn’t really sure what to say to that, he had thought they’d be past it by now and that Mickey had understood the situation.

“I’m sorry.” he finally said. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, and it’s true that I love your son, but I know he really wants to go back to live with you, he’s so happy and excited at the idea. No matter how much I care for him, I would never keep him away from you, that would just be cruel and I’m not that guy.”

Mickey looked down at his feet and then back up, fixing his gaze on a point over Ian’s right shoulder.

“Fine. Why are you here then?”

“I...” Ian started, remembering he was about to jump into a conversation about feelings and attraction, and suddenly feeling a little self-conscious about it. Then he noticed Mickey’s outfit and the fact that it was covered in paint. “Is that… _paint_ all over your clothes?” he asked, distracting both of them from the real reason of his visit.

“Yeah.” Mickey nodded, his eyes traveling down and over the many stains. “I’m painting Yevgeny’s room. He really likes the blue and green at your place so I thought he’d be happy if I did the same here, and with DCFS coming, it needed to look decent so...”

“That’s cute.” Ian smiled. “I’m glad my perfect taste in home decor inspired you.”

“Fuck you.” Mickey said while lifting his middle finger in Ian’s direction, but the little grin that accompanied it made it nonthreatening.

“Do you need help?” Ian asked. “I mean, I’ve painted the room in my apartment by myself, I know my way around a paintbrush.”

He hadn’t meant to make it sound like a weird innuendo but at the way Mickey’s tongue poked the inside of his cheek when he smirked, Ian guessed it did sounded kind of dirty.

“Sure.” Mickey nodded as he opened the door wider to let Ian in. “I guess the faster I finish this, the faster I can get my son back, right?”

“Right.”

It was the first time Ian actually stepped inside the Milkovich house. He had walked past it many times growing up, and had imagined nothing better than a crack house, which wasn’t far from the truth to be honest, but it looked extra clean and tidy, as if Mickey had spent the last two days scrubbing every single surface to make it shine.

“It’s nice.” Ian felt obligated to say.

“It’s a shithole.” Mickey pointed out. “You don’t need to try and make it sound better than it actually is, not all of us can afford some fancy apartment in a safe neighborhood. But at least it’s cleaner and safer than it used to be.”

“My apartment isn’t fancy.” Ian argued. “And it’s still technically in the South Side.”

“Technically being the key word in that sentence.”

“Fine.” Ian admitted. “I have a nice apartment. But your house is at least up to DCFS standards, and that’s all you need. Now show me Yevgeny’s room, I want to see your master paint work.”

The room was at the end of the hallway, and it was absolutely empty except for the giant piece of plastic covering the floor and the two pots of paint standing in the middle. One wall was already painted in a nice sea green color not dissimilar to the one in Ian’s apartment, two walls were still white, and the last one was half painted a deep navy blue.

“It looks good.” Ian said, this time really thinking it.

“Thanks.” Mickey replied quietly, clearly not used to genuine compliments.

He picked up a brand new paintbrush and handed it to Ian before grabbing the already used one he had most likely left there a couple of minutes ago. They painted in silence for a while, neither of them wanting to start a conversation that would open another can of worms, until they finished the wall. Then they stepped back and looked at their work.

“What are your plans now?” Ian asked. “Are you going to keep the other two walls white or are you going to paint them too?”

“I don’t know.” Mickey shrugged. He turned to Ian and frowned. “How come you have no paint on your clothes?”

“I’m just that good at it.” Ian said with a wink. “I don’t have two left hands, and I know I’m supposed to paint the wall, not my clothes.”

“Oh yeah?” Mickey chuckled and raised his eyebrows in a playful way. “Then maybe the guy with two left hands should just do that.”

And he flicked his brush toward Ian, covering his clean T-shirt and jeans with droplets of blue paint, Jackson Pollock style.

“Oh, I’m going to make you pay for this.”

Ian took his paintbrush back from where he had left it on the tray and smeared a large amount on Mickey’s shirt, which led to Mickey retaliating, and soon they were engrossed in a full on paint fight. They laughed and painted each other’s faces and clothes like careless teenagers just having fun. Maybe they were friends and just hadn’t had the opportunity to show each other their playful side yet, maybe this was the relation they were supposed to have all along, not nervous eye glances across the room and misdirected anger from things they had no control over. At one point, Ian found himself grabbing Mickey’s right wrist to keep the brush away from his face. The struggle had brought them so close together and suddenly, without thinking twice about it, Ian cradled Mickey’s face with his other hand and kissed him. It was a hard kiss on soft lips and Ian immediately regretted it. Not because it didn’t feel good (it felt damn fucking good), but because he didn’t even know if Mickey was okay with it. He didn’t let the kiss last long enough to know if Mickey ever reciprocated it, he broke the connection almost right away.

“I’m sorry.” he stuttered. “I shouldn’t have done that. Sorry. I’m… I’m gonna go…”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to apologize: I've been very busy this week, I haven't had time to write, and I told someone yesterday that the chapter would be up by the end of the day but turns out I didn't have time to post it. So here it is, please enjoy it, and, unfortunately, the next update might come in another week because I'm taking a few days vacation to a place without wifi.

One second Mickey was childishly fighting with paint, and the next Ian was kissing him. He hadn’t expected it but he also couldn’t lie and say he hadn’t wanted it. He had been dreaming of the redhead for weeks – if not months – when he was in prison, and he had really wanted to make a move on the night he slept over at his house. But already, before Mickey could fully register what was happening, Ian was pulling away and running away.

“Gallagher, wait!”

Ian turned around but didn’t look at Mickey.

“What the fuck was that?” Mickey asked.

“I don’t know.” Ian sighed. “I didn’t think, I just got caught up in the moment… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“So what? You’re just running away like a kid who just broke the neighbor’s window? I thought we were both adults here. You made a fucking mistake and that’s it, no need to fucking run.”

“A mistake, huh?” Ian repeated. “At least now I know where you stand. You know I actually came here to talk to you about whatever that is between us. Glad to know I’m alone in this.”

“For fuck’s sake, Gallagher.” Mickey sighed before he launched forward, grabbing Ian’s face and kissing him hard.

This wasn’t exactly what he had envisioned when he had thought and dreamed about this moment, he had hoped maybe the whole Yevgeny situation would be resolved first, but it was happening and Mickey wasn’t going to resist it. Ian was already enveloping him with his giant fucking body, cradling Mickey’s head with one hand, and holding his torso close against his with the other, but Mickey wanted more, if they were going to do this, they weren’t going to just kiss. He started unbuttoning Ian’s pants and grabbed him by the belt, dragging him to another room, their mouths not separating one inch, until they landed on something soft, bed, couch, Mickey wasn’t really sure but didn’t really care. Ian was on top of him, kissing his neck now, tiny little kisses that made his skin twitch. Mickey heard himself sigh loudly. It had been a long time since a lover had been gentle with him, his love life – well, _sex_ life – lately had been quick fucks in jail before a guard came in, or quick fucks in a club’s bathroom before he had to go back home to be a dad. Ian worked around his neck and moved back up to his jawline. Mickey caught his lips in his and gave him a short and hard kiss.

“You need to take that off.” he said while tugging at Ian’s shirt.

Ian laughed and sat on his knees, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Better?” he asked with a smirk.

“Much.” Mickey smiled back before taking his own shirt off.

Ian leaned back over him and kissed him again, and again. Now that they didn’t have any piece of clothing separating their chests, their hands were free to wander all over, and Mickey really appreciated Ian’s smooth skin and hard muscles. He let his hands travel south until they reached the jeans he had already unbuttoned. He started to pull on them, and Ian lifted his hips to help in the process, his pants sliding down mid-thigh. Mickey could see and feel the bulge in the other man’s boxers rubbing against his, and he tried his best to shimmy out of his sweatpants without loosing the contact, which wasn’t an easy task.

“Fuck.” Ian groaned when Mickey trusted against him, creating the most delicious friction.

That’s when Mickey took the time to assess his surroundings and realize they were thankfully in his bedroom, meaning they had what they needed close by.

“Alright.” he told Ian. “I’m gonna need you to reach into that nightstand with your freakishly long arm, second drawer.”

Ian nodded eagerly and complied, taking Mickey’s bottle of lube and a string of condoms out of the drawer. Okay, they probably wouldn’t need nor last for ten condoms, they weren’t sixteen anymore, but Mickey appreciated the enthusiasm. Ian dropped everything by Mickey’s head and kissed him one more time before taking the lube and squirting some onto his fingers. With his free hand, he tugged on Mickey’s boxers, failing to take them off so Mickey took pity on him and finished the work, taking Ian’s boxers off too while he was at it. Damn, the man was well hung. Mickey let out a loud little breath and looked back up at Ian grinning proudly. Mickey laughed and shook his head, that cocky little shit. Ian kissed the smile off his face and then reached down between them to wrap a hand around both of their dicks. Mickey sucked in a sharp breath. Fuck, that felt good. Ian jerked them together for a while as Mickey rested his forehead on the redhead’s shoulder. He knew he wouldn’t need much, but he was okay with coming that way for their first round, they’d have time for more later, he knew they had a few more hours until Ian had to go to work, and they would make the most of it. Mickey was projecting himself and he didn’t see this thing they were doing becoming more than what it was, a short and temporary fling. They could indulge today, maybe tomorrow, but as soon as Yevgeny would be back they had to stop or it would become too complicated. Sure, Mickey had dreamed of boyfriends and relationship, but it was just a dream, real life wasn’t so kind.

“You’re okay?” Ian asked, his voice already hoarse and breathless.

Mickey realized he had spaced out and brought himself back down to the here and now. He nodded and kissed the part of Ian’s skin the closest to his mouth.

“Good.” he moaned. “Almost there.”

Ian ground his hips down, hard, eliciting a throaty sound from Mickey he, himself, wasn’t expecting. Their hips and torsos molded together and Mickey slid his hand down to Ian’s ass, urging him even closer. Their dicks rubbed against each other, every thrust of Ian’s hips pushing them both closer to the edge. His hand moved faster, his thumb flicking gently across the tip in a way that made Mickey shudder.

“Fuck...” he heard himself say.

The muscles in his stomach started to twist and flutter, he was seconds away from release. Ian’s lips came back to his mouth in what wasn’t really a kiss, but simply a shared breath. Mickey moved his hands back up and grabbed onto his neck, holding him close as Ian flicked his fingers in a way that just pushed Mickey over the edge. He came with a groan, eyes closed, head tilted back. Ian bucked his hips and thrust a little harder. He let go of Mickey’s dick and simply ground down on his thigh a few times until he came too.

They paused, caught their breath, and Ian rolled over, lying down on the bed next to Mickey.

“Give me a few minutes and then we’re gonna do that again, but with your dick in my ass.” Mickey stated.

Ian turned his head to look at him.

“Bottom, huh?”

“What? Liking what I like don’t make me a bitch.”

“Oh, I know.” Ian laughed. “I’m just happy we’re compatible on this.”

Mickey didn’t hide his smile. Yeah, he guessed he was happy about that too. He sat up and pulled his underwear and pants back on, not caring about the drying come.

“You want some water?”

“Sure.” Ian nodded.

Mickey stood and walked to the hallway when he heard the front door open and some girly giggling.

“Shit.”

He rushed back into the bedroom and threw his shirt at Ian, putting his own back on.

“We have company.” he explained to Ian’s surprise face, and the redhead finished to get dressed just as the visitors appeared in the door frame.

Mickey had feared for half a second that it was DCFS’s surprise visit, but he was just his cousin and her new girlfriend – aka Ian’s sister.

“Hi.” Sandy smirked. “What’s going on here?”

“Ian’s helping me paint Yevgeny’s room for the DCFS visit.” Mickey said a little too quickly.

“Isn’t Yevgeny’s room down the hall, though?” Sandy asked in her fakest innocent voice.

“I was giving him a tour of the house while the paint dried.” Mickey spat. “The fuck are _you_ doing here?”

Sandy looked back at Ian’s sister (Mickey couldn’t recall her name) and they both giggled again like high school girls caught by their parents.

“Jesus, Debbie.” Ian groaned – and not in the good way. (Right, so her name was Debbie.) “I thought we talked about this.”

“Well, I decided I didn’t have to listen to you.” the sister – _Debbie_ – replied. “I’m a grown woman and I can date whoever I want.”

And with that, Debbie grabbed Sandy’s hand and dragged her toward what was definitely Mandy’s room. Mickey decided not to question it and turned back to Ian.

“I think you should go now.”

“I...” Ian started but Mickey was already walking toward the front door.

“I have a lot of work to do to make the house ready for inspection so you should leave. Thanks for helping though.”

He was ready to physically kick Ian out if the redhead didn’t take the hint, but apparently he did, keeping Mickey from having to use force. This whole thing had been a mistake, a nice, very sexy mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, and Mickey was glad Sandy had walked in, keeping them from going further, he needed to bring his focus back onto his son and everything he had to do for Yevgeny to be returned to him.

___________________________

Ian spent the rest of his childless week trying not to think about Mickey. The other man hadn’t called or texted after he had showed Ian the way out of his house, he had even seemed panicked when Sandy and Debbie had shown up. Ian for sure wanted more than just a hook up, and even though their situation was complicated, he had been ready to tell Sandy and Debbie the truth, he wasn’t exactly willing to hide. So, between that and the fact that he had been the one to make the first move and to express a certain interest and feelings, he was now waiting for Mickey to play his turn and reach out to him. Which Mickey didn’t do, prompting Ian to walk through the end of his week in a gloomy haze of frustration, and maybe even some anger. He had wanted to enjoy and take full advantage of these five days without Yevgeny, but, in the end, he just rehashed his too short sexual encounter with Mickey over and over again, and he went down to pick Yevgeny up on Friday afternoon still feeling bitter. He tried not to, he knew he had to act like a fucking adult who had to sort of co-parent with Mickey, but he just wanted to punch him for ignoring him. Maybe that was why Mickey was acting that way, maybe he had figured out whatever that was between them was too strong to end up amicably and had decided a clean cut would be easier, for Yevgeny’s sake. Ian couldn’t completely disagree with that. Yet, when he saw Mickey also waiting for Yevgeny at the bus station, he couldn’t help but to go to him.

Mickey ignored Ian’s greeting, he kept his arms crossed over his chest, looking at the road where the bus full of kids was scheduled to appear soon.

“So we’re just not going to talk to each other, huh?” Ian said with a dry chuckle, hating this situation with all his might.

It took a few seconds for Mickey to reply, but when he did, Ian sensed that his body relaxed if even the slightest bit.

“What happened the other day was just a one-time thing.” Mickey stated. “I had been in prison for a while, didn’t have sex before that, that’s it.”

Ian hummed. There was no doubt in his mind that Mickey was lying and Ian wasn’t satisfied with his answer.

“What?” Mickey spat.

“Nothing.” Ian shook his head.

“Don’t give me that Gallagher.” Mickey said angrily. “What’s wrong?”

Ian sighed loudly. Yevgeny would be here any minute, they needed to figure their shit out and fast, so he opted for the cold, hard truth.

“I just… don’t agree with those terms.” he admitted. “I like you and I don’t want it to be a one time thing.”

The yellow school bus pulled around the corner then and came to a stop a few feet in front of them.

“Tough break, then.” Mickey muttered as the other parents gathered around them. “Cause it ain’t happening.”

The bright and cheerful camp counselor exited the bus and announced to everyone that the week had gone wonderfully well. She then let the children out and they all ran in different directions toward their caregivers. Yevgeny was the seventh kid to come out, a big smile on his lips. He spotted Ian and his dad almost right away and walked toward them with more confidence than Ian had ever seen in him.

“How was your week?” he asked once the boy was close enough.

“It was awesome!!!” Yevgeny exclaimed. “We went in the woods and we built a tree house. We swam in a lake and went on a boat. We made fire, and s’mores, it was so cool!!!”

“Glad you liked it, kiddo.” Mickey smiled while tussling his child’s hair. “I was thinking we could go get some pizza or something.”

He looked up at Ian at that with this fire in his eyes that dared him to oppose the plan. Ian gave him a tight smile and nodded.

“That sounds great.” he said. “What do you think Yev?”

Yevgeny agreed, of course, that boy never said no to pizza, and the three of them walked away from the crowd of overexcited kids and parents, Ian and Mickey both pretending as if nothing had ever happened.

********

It didn’t take long for Yevgeny to fall asleep that night, he was exhausted from his week of fun and activities. Mickey had already gone home, they had parted ways after the pizzeria, so Ian was the lone parent for the rest of the evening. After Yevgeny had gone to sleep, Ian went to lie on his bed, arms behind his head, thinking about Mickey again. Maybe he shouldn’t have kissed him, maybe it had been a terrible idea from the start, he should have kept his feelings hidden until Yevgeny went back to live with his dad, and then Ian could have moved on without too much trouble. But no, he had to act on it, and Mickey had to respond with equal hunger, leading them both down a path they shouldn’t even have considered…

His phone buzzed on the bedside table and Ian grabbed it to read an incoming text from Mickey.

**[From Mickey]** _Yevgeny sleeping?_

Ian sat up, typing and sending a quick “yes”. The phone buzzed again seconds later.

**[From Mickey]** _Go open your front door_

The text was cryptic as fuck, but Ian had a little idea of why Mickey was telling him that and, indeed, when he went to open the door, Mickey was there with a sly smile.

“Yevgeny cannot know.” he stated before Ian could even say anything. “I don’t know what the fuck this is, but for now it’s just between us, and if you’re not okay with that then I’ll just leave right now.”

“I’m okay with that.” Ian rushed to say.

“Good.” Mickey smiled wider. “Now I really need you to fuck me.”


	13. Chapter 13

The inconvenience of having an affair with the father of the child you foster when you work full time and you’re trying to keep the relationship secret is that you don’t have a lot of time to meet, and that was the problem Ian was experiencing at the moment. He could only see Mickey once or twice a week if their schedule allowed it, they had secret rendez-vous on their lunch breaks, and sneaked meaningful looks or small kisses and ass grabs when they were with Yevgeny and the child wasn’t paying attention to them. Ian wasn’t completely satisfied with the situation but he knew it was the best he could hope for considering, and he also knew that, as a single foster parent, he was luckiest than most. At least that was what he told himself as he was impatiently looking at his phone for the seventieth times in five minutes. His lunch break was only half an hour today, he had already wasted five of them coming to their meeting spot, and another five waiting for Mickey. But he was luckiest than most, _luckiest than most._

Ian had never thought he would have to one day google the terms “safest places to have sex outside without getting caught” but there he was. They had tried the changing room and shower in his EMT station but had almost been surprised by a colleague, so then they had tried renting a motel by the hour, but they didn’t usually have the time to make it work, so they had gone back to semi-public places, from bathrooms in bars or movie theaters to where Ian was waiting now: a secluded rooftop that was easily accessible and not far from his station. If only Mickey wasn’t late… He checked his phone one more time and cursed under his breath.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” the long awaiting voice of Mickey Milkovich suddenly asked.

“You.” Ian replied without being able to keep the smile off his face. “You’re late.”

“Yeah, I know.” Mickey sighed. “Had a job interview and the guy kept fucking talking.”

They were walking toward each other as they were speaking, barely conscious that the distance between them was getting smaller.

“Do you think you’ll get the job?” Ian wondered.

“Maybe.” Mickey shrugged. “But I don’t know if I want it, I’m not good with talkers.”

“Is that your not-so-subtle way of letting me know I talk too much?”

“Depends… Are you willing to put your mouth to better use?”

“I was thinking you would, considering I waited for you and all...”

Mickey smirked. They were only inches from each other now.

“And here I thought I’d be the one getting a consolation price for going to such an annoying job interview and for listening to that guy talk and talk and talk...”

This, Ian thought, this was why it was all worth it, the sporadic meeting schedules, the hiding, the waiting: badly flirting and joking with Mickey was always one of the best parts of the limited time they spent together.

“So, you wanna chit-chat more or you wanna get on me?”

“Definitely get on you.” Ian smiled. “We’ll keep the chit-chat for when we have more than ten minutes together...”

___________________________

“You sure you know what you’re doing?”

Ian looked down at the pot of elbow noodles he was currently boiling and back up at his brother.

“Yeah, I think I know how to cook pasta.”

Lip rolled his eyes.

“I meant about Mickey.” he said.

Ian’s felt his eyes grow wider and his cheeks burn red. He shot a glance behind them at the kids playing in the living room. Yevgeny was too engrossed in the card trick Xan was showing him to register what was being said in the kitchen.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ian lied as he shifted his eyes back to his pasta.

“Well, either Debbie hallucinated you coming out of Mickey’s room looking thoroughly fucked, or you’re lying to me.”

Ian sighed. Of course Debbie wouldn’t keep her mouth shut about this. He grabbed a wooden spoon and stirred his pasta.

“Debbie should learn to keep stuff to herself.” he mumbled.

Lip sat straighter on the stool he was occupying across from Ian.

“So it’s true?” he exclaimed. “You’re screwing the father of your foster child?”

Ian shushed him, sending at the same time some water flying off the wooden spoon.

“Keep your mouth shut! We don’t want Yevgeny to know.”

“So you guys are already a ‘we’, huh? I thought you were just fucking.”

“I guess we are just fucking cause we don’t exactly have the time or opportunity to actually date or anything like that, but I really like him.”

“So what? You’re planning on marrying him and officially adopt Yevgeny?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t fucking know, Lip. We just started whatever that is between us, and yes, I do want a relationship, but I also want to take it slow and see where it goes before we make a commitment that involves a child. No matter how I feel, I don’t want Yevgeny to get hurt.”

“I get it.” Lip nodded. “My relationship with Tami was never so weird, but even in our worst rough patches I would always prioritize the kids. I guess our parents fucked us up enough that we don’t want to reproduce the same patterns with our children. That’s growth, man.”

“The Gallagher curse won’t live on.” Ian laughed.

“So we’re cursed now?” Liam asked as he suddenly walked into the room.

“We’ve always been cursed, little bro.” Lip admitted as he tried to ruffle Liam’s hair and failed when the teenager moved out of the way. “Our burden is to accept it.”

___________________________

Mickey had gone on several job interviews, all of them set up by his parole officer, and none of them had called him back yet. Sure, Mickey had a record and had gone back to jail several times, and sure he had missed a day of work without notice to partake in illegal activities the last time he had been arrested, but he wasn’t a psycho murderer or a pedocriminal, he was simply a guy who had grown up in the wrong part of town with the wrong parents and who had done some mistakes he had been punished for, and had redeemed himself since. Wasn’t the justice system supposed to rehabilitate, especially people like Mickey who had behaved exemplary in prison? The way society treated ex-inmates felt very much like double punishment, which, according to Sandy, who had apparently researched the hell out of the subject (when you don’t have money for a lawyer and spend so much time on the wrong side of the law, you sometimes have to know enough to defend yourself), was unconstitutional, it violated one amendment or another, Mickey wasn’t sure which one. All that to say, Mickey wasn’t getting a job and it pissed the fuck out of him because that meant he couldn’t get his son back just yet. The DCFS surprise visit to his house had gone by smoothly, and the only thing missing now was that damn job he needed to support his child. After that, they could all go to Family Court and Yevgeny would be entirely his once again.

Fingers snapped in front of his face and Ian’s voice asked what he was thinking about. Mickey shook himself from his thoughts, coming back to Ian’s kitchen and the Lego Star Wars plane (or whatever the fuck that was called) he was helping his son to build. Yevgeny was intensively focusing on the wing he was putting together and hadn’t noticed his father spacing out, but Ian was watching Mickey, probably still waiting for an answer. It had been two weeks since they had started seeing each other in secret, and Mickey hadn’t once regretted the decision of pursuing the feelings he had for the other man, but he sometimes longed for something more, especially on days like this when the cold wind and rain outside had them huddled inside building Legos in the most domestic manner. Ian allowed Mickey to come see Yevgeny almost everyday, they spent their entire weekends as just the three of them and ate dinner together most nights, and Mickey liked it. He loved their dynamic, he weirdly enjoyed co-parenting Yevgeny with Ian, and he just genuinely appreciated spending time with that man, whether it was just the two of them sneaking in blow jobs on Ian’s lunch break, or their little family unit on the weekends. He wasn’t ready to ask for more though, his life was complicated enough as it was, he needed to fix everything else before he could bring what was happening on the down low out in the open.

“Nothing.” he told Ian as an answer to his previous inquiry, and he saw in the redhead's eyes that he could tell he was lying.

“Look dad!” Yevgeny exclaimed, showing off his finished wing. “I did it!”

“Great job, bud.” Mickey smiled. “Let’s attach it to the rest of the plane now.”

“It’s not a plane.” Yevgeny rolled his eyes. “It’s a Starfighter.”

“Yeah, Mickey.” Ian added at Mickey’s raising his eyebrows in incomprehension. “It’s a Starfighter, you should know that.”

“Fuck you and your Star Wars.” Mickey laughed. “I can’t believe you introduced my son to that without my consent, now I have to sit through these fucking movies.”

“Come on.” Ian smirked. “You secretly love it.”

“I secretly love a lot of things.” Mickey pointed out with a discreet but playful raise of eyebrow. “That ain’t one of it.”

“Why don’t you like it?” Yevgeny asked ever so innocently. “It’s fun, they fight with light sabers and they race each other in the sky!”

“I like my action movies taking place on good old planet Earth, thank you very much.”

The debate lasted for the rest of the afternoon, Yevgeny and Ian trying to sell Mickey onto _the many qualities_ of Star Wars and Mickey refusing to hear it, more by stubbornness than by actual interest in the debate. If he didn’t ‘secretly loved it’ as Ian so eloquently put it, he didn’t actually mind it either, he had just never understood how people could be so into it and wasn’t a fan of franchises like this one that took advantage of kids to sell them useless expensive crap with their logo on it. He let Yevgeny and Ian have their fun though, and maybe building a Lego Starfighter (or whatever this thing was called) was sort of nice after all.

********

The hardest part about spending time like this with both his son and Ian was trying not to openly flirt with Ian too much, or avoiding randomly kissing him just because he wanted to, and Mickey caught himself on more than one occasion looking at the redhead for a little too long or his hand lingering a bit much when Ian passed a plate of food or a bottle of beer. Not that he was the only one in this, Ian was just as guilty, but maintaining a casual relationship around Yevgeny was difficult. The boy went to the bathroom after the whole Star Wars debate, and as soon as the door closed behind him, Ian was caging Mickey against the counter where he was standing and kissing the soft skin behind his ear.

“Fuck...” Mickey breathed before pushing Ian gently away from him. “Come on, the kid’s right here.”

“I know.” Ian sighed, taking a step back – and the distance was already killing Mickey. “You should stay tonight. You can do Yev’s bedtime routine and then stay for an hour or two after he falls asleep.”

“And do your bedtime routine?” Mickey snickered.

Ian just smiled at that and shrugged as if it wasn’t exactly what he was suggesting. Mickey let out a little laugh. Yeah, he was definitely staying.

___________________________

Yevgeny had noticed his dad and Ian were acting weird. They acted like they were best friends, but also like it was bad to touch each other. Ian always hugged everybody, he hugged his brothers and sisters, and he hugged Yevgeny’s aunts, but he never hugged Yevgeny’s dad, and Yevgeny knew his dad didn’t like to hug people much, but he sometimes hugged Auntie Mandy or Auntie Sandy because he really liked them, and he always hugged Yevgeny, but he liked Ian too, right? So he could hug him, especially if they were best friends. When they said hello, it was always weird, they just stood there and looked at each other for way too long, Yevgeny didn’t understand it. It kind of reminded him of the boys in his class who thought it was dirty to touch girls. Yevgeny thought these boys were stupid, but maybe his dad and Ian thought it was dirty to touch each other? That was still weird though.

He had asked his Auntie Sandy about it one day when they were all at Ian’s family house for a barbecue, and his Auntie Sandy had looked at his dad and Ian talking next to the table, she had shaken her head and laughed, saying they were idiots but she hadn’t explained to Yevgeny why she was saying that, she had just left after that and had gone to talk and kiss with Franny’s mom. So Yevgeny had asked Franny and Franny had said she had heard people sometimes saying they didn’t want to touch her mom or her uncle Ian because they didn’t want to “catch gay”, but Yevgeny knew that wasn’t possible. He knew what being gay meant, he knew it wasn’t something you caught by touching people, and he knew that wasn’t a problem with his dad or Ian anyway because they were both already gay. And at the end of the day, his dad and Ian were still acting weird and Yevgeny had no answer.

___________________________

Mickey ran his fingers over Ian’s hard biceps. The redhead's arms were flexed as he held himself up above Mickey, his hands tangled in the sheets by Mickey’s head. Mickey's hands traveled further up Ian's arms to grip his shoulders, sinking his nails in the soft skin, and pulling the man tighter against his chest. Ian let out a deep groan, a groan Mickey swallowed by kissing him harshly. Ian thrust harder into the other man, Mickey moaned. His cock was rubbing against Ian's tight abs, and the redhead's movements became more and more erratic as he was pushing relentlessly against Mickey's prostate. Ian let his arms slightly give up and he buried his face in the crook of Mickey's neck, bringing their bodies even closer and making the friction of Mickey’s dick with Ian's chest more and more intense. Mickey almost whined at the sensation, letting his hands roam over Ian's defined back, the redhead's shaky breath caressing his neck. When Ian's teeth suddenly sunk into his skin, Mickey came hard between them with a low growl. He clawed at Ian’s back and clenched around him. Ian thrust a few more times, pumping relentlessly until he came too, filling the condom deep inside Mickey’s ass. They stayed like this, holding each other tightly, for a few very long minutes, almost struggling to breathe. Finally, Ian pulled out, falling into the mattress next to Mickey. He made a quick job of cleaning them both and placed a soft kiss on Mickey’s cheek that turned into a kiss on the lips and almost a minute of making out before they pulled apart again.

“We need to do that in a bed more often.” Ian whispered quietly, careful not to wake Yevgeny up. “I think I’m getting tired of sneaking into back alleys and abandoned rooftops.”

“Welcome to my life.” Mickey sighed. “Between living with a raging homophobic dad and then raising a child by myself, I haven’t used beds a whole lot.”

“Except you aren’t doing either of those things anymore.” Ian pointed out. “Your dad’s dead and I’m kind of raising Yevgeny too.”

Ian watched Mickey stare at him for a long time, afraid he had said the wrong thing, but then Mickey smirked.

“You’re right.” he said. “I should take advantage of Yevgeny living with you to invite guys back to my place and fuck on my bed.”

Okay, that hurt. Ian was half-certain Mickey was joking, but just the idea of imaging him with other guys felt like a punch in the stomach.

“I don’t want you to do that.” he confessed.

“You don’t want me to sleep with other guys?”

“I will break their kneecaps if you do.”

“Good.” Mickey smiled. “Cause I don’t really want to sleep with other guys anyway, and I’ll do the same to any other fucker you bring back here.”


	14. Chapter 14

Every time Ian received a call from Bethany to schedule a meeting, he was always expecting bad news. This time, when he saw her name flash across his phone screen, he already knew what she was going to say. He had talked with Mickey just a couple of hours prior, when the other man had told him he had been hired by “the talker” and was ready to move his case to court. They hadn’t kissed, they hadn’t touched, something cold had come and gone between them. They had never once talked about what would happen once Yevgeny would go back to live with Mickey, and Ian had simply assumed they would continue their relationship until they could become official and live happily ever after as a little family of three, but now he wasn’t so sure Mickey shared that vision of the future. Maybe their fling was just temporary to him and he was ready to go back to his normal life now, leaving Ian behind. They had only seen each other for five minutes, and then Mickey needed to go meet with his PO, they hadn’t had time to discuss things further, and if Ian already knew the bad news Bethany was calling him to announce, he didn’t know how to deal with it.

He met her in her office, sitting on the chair across from her in the cluttered room with files all over the place. He wasn’t sure if it was possible, but it seemed like there were more files every time he came in there.

“Will this be your first time in Family Court?” Bethany asked as she looked through the paperwork on her desk.

“As an adult, yes.” Ian answered. “I’ve been there a few times as a child, but I’m not sure what my role as a foster parent will be.”

“Alright.” Bethany started, pilling up her files. “So Mr Milkovich will be there with his lawyer representing the parent’s side. We will be representing the child’s side. DCFS will provide a lawyer for Yevgeny, I will be there as his caseworker, and you will be there to be questioned about the time Yevgeny spent with you and what you think is best for him. Witnesses such as teachers, doctors or neighbors will also be interrogated, all that to determine if the boy is safe to go back to live with his father or not. Do you follow so far?”

“Yes.” Ian nodded, ignoring the knot forming in his stomach.

“I know you have been spending a lot of time with Mr Milkovich in the best interest of the child, but you will be required to tell the truth, what you truly think is best for Yevgeny.”

“I know, I understand that.”

“So do you already have an idea of what you are going to say?”

Ian paused. Yes, he knew what he was going to say, of course he did, no matter how he felt toward Mickey and his radio silence after their time together, he knew Yevgeny needed to go back with him. He only feared he would lose Mickey in the process, but that wasn’t Bethany’s business.

“I will say that Mickey is a great father.” he said after a while. “And that he should be given full custody without restrictions.”

“Good.” Bethany nodded with a smile. “We’re on the same page then.”

She gave him some documents after that to prepare for court and were ready to parted ways when Ian’s mouth uttered a question without waiting for his brain’s approval.

“Have you ever heard of foster and biological parents who develop a… _relationship_ beyond the child’s time in foster care?”

“Yes.” Bethany nodded. “I’ve seen many foster and biological parents become friends with time, and the foster families often see the children even after they go back home. It happens all the time. You’ve developed a strong bond with Yevgeny, it’s only normal to want to stay in touch with him.”

“That’s great.” Ian said, nodding his head and twisting his hands together. Should he stay on that or say more? He was going to say more, his mouth couldn’t shut up. “But I meant… a _romantic_ relationship?”

Bethany looked at him for a long time, understanding slowly drawing on her face. Her genuine smile turned into a frown, and then back into a little polite grin.

“There is no rule.” she stated. “But allow me to remind you once again that your testimony in court needs to reflect the best interest of the child, and nothing else.”

“I know, and I will remain impartial, for Yevgeny.”

“Good.” Bethany said. “Beyond that, you can date whomever you want, but if you decide to enter into a committed relationship with someone that will be a big part of your life, and you still want to foster children, then that person might need to get certified too, which is harder to do with a criminal record and a history of children ending up in the system.”

“I know.” Ian repeated. “I just… I don’t really know what I’m doing or what’s going on, but I don’t want Yevgeny to suffer from it.”

“Well, I advise you don’t bring it up in court then.” Bethany smiled again, this time a little gentler.

********

“State your name for the record.”

“Ian Clayton Gallagher.”

“And what is your function here today?”

“I am a licensed foster parent. I have been fostering Yevgeny Milkovich for several months now.”

The judge nodded at Ian’s answers and took notes every time, as if he didn’t already have all of the information. After Ian had left Bethany’s office, he had texted Mickey about his meeting with her, telling him he was ready for court and would do everything he could so that Yevgeny could go back to live with him, and Mickey had replied a simple “ok”. They hadn’t seen each other since these five minutes, not even with Yevgeny, Mickey was always too busy with his new job or with his lawyer. Things weren’t easy for Ian already, but now he also had to explain to the boy that his father couldn’t spend time with him because he was too busy doing everything he could to get him back. Needless to say these past couple of weeks had dragged on more than necessary.

“What are your thoughts on Yevgeny’s development and behavior?” the judge asked.

“Yevgeny is a bright and well-adjusted kid.” Ian answered. “It was a true joy fostering him.”

“We have on the record here the testimony of a teacher who attested that Yevgeny once uncharacteristically used violence against another child in his class. What can you tell us about that?”

“That other child in Yevgeny’s class led him to believe that he would never go back to live with his father and that I intended to steal him. It doesn’t excuse violence, but I believe Yevgeny acted like any other scared 7-year-old would have.”

“How did you handle this behavior?”

“I talked with him and let him know I had no intention of keeping him forever, and that he would go back to live with his father as soon as possible.”

“You have spent some time with Yevgeny’s father since he was released from prison, is that correct?”

“Yes. He was allowed several supervised visits a week and I was there every time.”

“What is your opinion of Yevgeny’s father, Mr... _Mikhailo Aleksandr Milkovich_?”

Ian looked up to Mickey on the other side of the courtroom, who was avoiding his eyes at all cost, and then to Bethany, who was watching him expectantly. He breathed slowly.

“Mickey is a wonderful father and a great person.” he said. “The fact that he has spent some time in prison does not affect at all his ability to be a loving and caring father. I truly believe he should be given full custody again.”

The judge took note of Ian’s words while Ian tried to catch Mickey’s eyes again, in vain. So that was it, huh? They were done now that this whole fostering situation was almost over. Ian tried not to let it affect him but it was harder than it looked. He went through the next couple of hours not really listening to what was happening but he did register when the judge awarded Mickey full custody of Yevgeny with no limitations. Ian and Yevgeny had watched Yevgeny’s favorite movie the night before and Ian had cooked him a grand breakfast this morning. Yevgeny had just been excited at the idea that he was probably going to go back to live with his dad that very night, while Ian was trying to soak as much time with the kid as he could. And now it was over, he was no longer Yevgeny’s foster parent, no longer his other father, the guy that was dropped into his life out of nowhere to take care of him for almost a year.

“You did good.” Bethany smiled as they were standing in the hall outside of the courtroom after it was all said and done and the paperwork was signed, and Ian was observing Yevgeny celebrating with Mickey and Mandy several feet away from them. “For a first-time foster parent you were confident and honest, these situations in court are never easy.”

Ian gave her a little grin. Yeah, he did good, so why did it hurt so much? He looked at Mickey giving all of his attention to his child, the two of them finally reunited and Ian officially and definitely out of their lives. He felt out of place, the third wheel they just had to accept until now but ultimately got rid of. He sighed and made his way out of the courthouse. Bethany had told him she would call as soon as she would have another placement for him, and Ian had absentmindedly nodded his approval. He just wanted to go home for now, maybe open a few beers and watch mindless TV until he fell asleep.

He liked Mickey, he really did, but all along a voice kept nagging at him that what they had wasn’t meant to last anyway, and considering they hadn’t talked beyond what was necessary for Yevgeny since Mickey had gotten his new job and received his court date, Ian had started to accept that it was over between them. He was ready to hear an “I told you so” from Lip and wouldn’t exactly blame him if he did say it. He walked down the three stairs in front of the courthouse and headed down the street to catch the L. He wasn’t really looking forward to the loneliness of his apartment, a part of him hoped he would get a new foster child soon, even if it would be hard to “replace” Yevgeny.

“Gallagher, wait!” a voice – Mickey’s voice – called.

Ian tried not to hold onto hope as he turned around, watching Mickey slightly jogged toward him.

“Where are you going?” Mickey asked as if it was obvious that Ian wasn’t supposed to leave.

“Home. Where else?” Ian shrugged.

“Want to have dinner with us, at my house for once? Mandy has to go back to work, but Yevgeny and I… We wouldn’t mind you joining us.”

Mickey smiled a little, almost shy. Was Mickey taking pity on him and his newfound lonely life? Ian didn’t need that.

“It’s fine.” he said. “You should spend some time alone with your kid for once, without my presence disturbing you.”

He made a move to turn back toward the train station, ready to put Mickey and Yevgeny behind him.

“Damn it, Gallagher.” Mickey laughed dryly, the tone of his voice laced with what sounded like a bit of anger. “ _Ian_ , if I invite you it’s because I want you there, so stop acting like a sad fucking puppy and come hang out with us.”

___________________________

For the first time since he had met him, Ian woke up with his arms wrapped around Mickey’s body. It hadn’t exactly been planned, they had spent the evening at the Milkovich house, eating dinner with Yevgeny and playing board games, but when it was time for Ian to leave he just… _didn’t_. He spent the rest of the night with Mickey, and even when they would usually part ways, they stayed together and they slept together. They didn’t talk about it, it just happened naturally, they just didn’t want to say goodbye. And when the light from the morning sun woke them up, they rolled over and kissed each other good morning, and then kissed more and more until Ian was slipping on a condom and swiftly entering Mickey, thrusting his hips hard. They started slow and languid when a sound in the house made them freeze, something that seemed to indicate that Yevgeny was awake. They looked back at each other.

“You have forty-five seconds to pull your shit together.” Mickey muttered, to which Ian nodded.

“I’m way ahead of you.”

He pumped a little faster, drawing thick moans and groans from the both of them, and pushing him to cover Mickey’s mouth with his hand. Mickey returned the gesture in kind, covering Ian’s mouth with his own hand and they finished as quickly as they possibly could, their cry of pleasure muffled against each other’s skin, Mickey even biting Ian’s palm for good measure.

As soon as he could breathe properly again, Ian jumped out of the bed and into his clothes. Without bothering to lace his shoes or button his pants, he grabbed his sweater on the dresser and exited the room, ready to sneak out the house discreetly. Only to be faced right away with Yevgeny’s sleepy face.

“Ian?” the boy yawned. “What are you doing here? Why are you coming out of my daddy’s room?”

Ian turned to look at Mickey who was now standing right behind him, and then back at Yevgeny.

“I… uh… I came to see you. I missed you, buddy.”

“Why aren’t you dressed properly? Were you and daddy kissing? Daddy, is Ian your boyfriend now?”

“Damn kid.” Mickey exhaled, almost impressed.

“I want Ian to be your boyfriend.” Yevgeny admitted with a little whine.

“I guess we don’t have a choice then.” Ian laughed.

“Do you even know what being boyfriends mean?” Mickey asked.

“It means that you hold hands and you kiss on the mouth. And that you can’t do that with anyone else, just with your boyfriend.” Yevgeny explained proudly.

“I like that.” Ian smiled. “Hold hands and kiss only one person...”

Mickey rolled his eyes.

“You know, things are not that easy, Yev.” he sighed. “I can’t be boyfriends with someone just because you want to.”

“But do you like Ian?” the child asked, matter-of-factly.

Mickey looked at Ian and then back at his son.

“Yeah...” he breathed out. “I guess I like him.”

“And do you want to kiss him?”

Mickey hesitated.

“Yes.” he finally confessed. “Yes I want to kiss him.”

“So?” Yevgeny added. “You can be boyfriends.”

“It’s solid logic right there.” Ian said with a small laugh. “Come on, Mickey, what do you say? Do you want to be boyfriends?”

“Fuck you, Gallagher.” Mickey chuckled in that way that always brought butterflies to Ian’s stomach. “Come on, let’s go make some banana pancakes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is one chapter left and it's more of an epilogue than anything else. Thank you everyone who has read, commented and left kudos so far, I appreciate every single one of you 😊


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, the epilogue. I hope it will answer your questions.
> 
> Thank you so much all for reading this story. I don't know when or what I'll write next. You might see me again in two days or six months, who knows? But in any case, I'm glad I have such awesome readers 😊

Mickey watched his husband play with the ring on his finger as he filled out paperwork and he couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re supposed to be studying.” Ian’s stern voice said.

“Do I?” Mickey sighed. “What the fuck is all this shit for anyway?”

“Mick.” Ian rolled his eyes. “I agreed that we’d move into that awful family house of yours only because we needed the bedrooms to foster more children. Now you need to keep your end of the bargain and study to get licensed.”

“Fucking fine.” Mickey agreed. “But I still don’t understand why we need fucking classes to be good parents, Yevgeny’s doing great and I never took classes.”

To make his point, he waved his hand toward the eight-year-old sitting quietly on the couch a few feet away from them, engrossed in a comic book.

“True.” Ian nodded. “But _I_ took classes so maybe your improvised parenting style is balanced by my academic knowledge.”

“Fuck you.” Mickey snorted, giving his husband the finger. “My _improvised parenting style_ as you call it was doing just fine before you came along.”

Ian shook his head and smiled, going back to his paperwork as Mickey kept staring at him. Yes, he knew he had to keep studying, but looking at his husband was always so much more interesting… Yevgeny came to show him an especially epic action in his comic book, distracting him for a moment. Mickey had never wanted that child in the first place, but now he wasn’t sure how he could live without him, especially after last year, so it hadn’t taken a lot of convincing on Ian’s part for Mickey to agree to foster more children. His only major problem was that he had to go to fucking school for it, even if it was only for twelve hours…

“Study!” Ian said, when he noticed that Mickey was now just reading Yevgeny’s book without even pretending otherwise.

“Yes, mom.” Mickey sighed. “Sorry kiddo.” he told Yevgeny. “I’ll read it with you later.”

“It’s fine.” Yevgeny smiled. “I know you’re going to school so that I can get new brothers and sisters.”

And, of course, that remark earned Yevgeny a big smile from Ian which turned into a little knowing smirk for Mickey. Fine, he would go back to work...

********

Later that night, Mickey was trying to sleep, tightly snuggled into strong arms, but that task seemed to be impossible as he could hear his husband’s racing thoughts from a mile away, that man had always been thinking too loudly.

“Mick?”

“Sleeping.” he mumbled against his pillow.

Ian didn’t seem to care though as he kept talking.

“Do you ever think we got married too fast?”

“No.”

“But, we weren’t together for long and...”

Mickey sighed loudly and turned around to face his husband’s worried face.

“Did we get married fast? Yes.” he recognized. “But we both agreed it was necessary for you to officially adopt Yevgeny. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to make decisions for him and in case I go back to jail, he won’t have to go to DCFS again.”

“So you just married me for legal reasons, for the paperwork.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. Sometimes his husband’s insecurities were tiring.

“Jesus, Ian. Are we doing this again?” he exclaimed, running a finger between his eyes. “I married you because I love you, okay? You being able to adopt my son in the process is just an added bonus, but it won’t happen if we don’t sleep and show up with our heads up our asses to court tomorrow morning. And I know that you’re worried, but I can assure you that the judge won’t question your motives, your bond with Yevgeny or your relationship to me, it’s all pretty crystal clear.”

Mickey waited for a bit after his little speech until he saw Ian’s features relax and a small smile appear on his lips. That was good enough for him, he could go back to sleep now. He was just closing his eyes when it happened again.

“Mick?”  
  
“What?” he groaned – he wasn’t a pretty sight when he lacked sleep.

“I love you too.”

He couldn’t help the smile that took over his face, and he finally let himself fall into a deep slumber.

  
********

It had been exactly a year to the day since the last time they had all been to family court. Mickey remembered these weeks as if in a blur. He had never been more anxious in his entire life. The reality that he might not get his son back hit him when he received his court date and he had been incapable of thinking about anything else, so much so that he couldn’t even bring himself to go see him. They had talked about it with Ian later on, when Ian had confessed he thought Mickey had just been ready to move on from him. Mickey had never even considered it, for him Ian had been an evidence from the moment he had first kissed him, if not earlier, and he had been more than happy to tell him that (especially because it led to some pretty awesome sex – not that sex with Ian was ever not awesome).

  
This time though, he wasn’t anxious at all, he knew the judge would see Ian as just as much of an evidence as he did, but Ian was the one nervously jittering on his chair. Mickey slid his hand on his husband’s knee and left it there as Ian grabbed it and held it tight. Everything would be okay, they were a family no matter what the judge would say...

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos and/or comments if you wish. And you can also come talk and share with me on my [tumblr](http://ilostmylifeonline.tumblr.com/), it's always appreciated :)


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